


Loch Each, 1963

by kayeblaise



Series: SVT Immortals AU [6]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Gen, Team as Family, a good old fashioned mystery, more folks tagged later on, none of them are human, not necessary to read the other parts to read this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2018-12-31 02:19:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 25,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12122409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayeblaise/pseuds/kayeblaise
Summary: Children start to go missing in the village.  The crew set out to solve the mystery before suspicion falls on them.





	1. Chapter 1

Jun flicks on the lights when he enters into the living room.  The ceiling fan is spinning with a metallic slice of the blades through the air.  The morning is arriving colorless with diffused light.  Although the room is heavily curtained against the sun, it is already hot.

There is motion at the couch as S. Coups sits up all at once.  He turns in Jun’s direction but his eyes are half lidded and unfocused.  His hair sticks up every which way.

“Rough night?” Jun asks with light humor, moving across the room toward the bay window.  As he moves by, S. Coups tracks him but doesn’t seem to quite register what is happening.

“Huh?” He is scratching at his head absentmindedly.

“You were out late,” Jun remarks as he gets to the window and peeks outside.  There is mist sitting across the open field that rolls from the western side of the house.  The wandering fence that serves little purpose now disappears into it.  There is no sign of reprieve from the heat that’s been choking the town.  The trees are still.  The grass is gold from lack of rain and the slant of the sunlight has just barely begun its climb out of the horizon.

When he looks back, S. Coups’s face is giving the impression that the taste in his mouth is unpleasant and that this is something he is relatively perplexed by. 

“Hey, Coups?”

“Yeah,” comes the answer in a distracted tone.  Coups is still inwardly focused on whatever is making his eyebrows knit in undefined confusion.

“You have something in your hair.”

As Jun watches, S. Coups’s hand rises with a mind of its own toward his hair.  He only seems aware that his hand has moved at all when he pulls out a dead leaf and looks at it with a dull intensity, like he will suddenly gain the ability to communicate with the leaf and find out how it got there.

“Did you have fun?”

“What?”

He waits until S. Coups’s eyes slide over to him to explain, “You went to the pub with the guys from town.”  When that didn’t seem to ring a bell, Jun elaborated, “The ones you work with at manufacturing.”

For a second, it seemed like Coups might question what Jun meant, but Jun was saved from that scenario when Coups agreed, “No, yeah, that makes sense.”

“Guess it was a little more than a good time.”

Huffing his agreement, S. Coups haphazardly brushes a sweep of hair out of his face with the back of his hand and winces.

“How did you get that?” Jun asks, pointing to his own forehead where the mark is on S. Coups’s face.

S. Coups seems perplexed but starts poking at the bruise like he’s mapping the edges. “Don’t know.”

“Alright, well, I’m going to head out.”

“Where?”

“It’s Saturday,” Jun reminds him.  He counts a full five seconds before the light of recognition pops into S. Coups’s eyes and he hums his understanding.

Figuring that’s enough of his cue to go, he starts to head out of the room.

“Wait,” Coups pushes himself up from the couch, “I’ll drive you.”

It takes Jun a long moment to figure out why this suggestion is off putting to him.  “Did you drive the car last night?”

Coups furrows his eyebrows.  “I’m almost positive.”

Jun doesn’t so much agree to the offer as allow S. Coups to follow him out of the house.  He trips over the cat that darts across the walkway. 

“Hoshi!” he calls in annoyance as the cat disappears.

S. Coups is apparently awake enough to joke, “He probably heard us talking about the car. He hates that car.”

“We all hate that car.”

S. Coups ignores him.  "Can't believe Hoshi's jealous.”

“It figures they’d name a faulty, breakdown car like that The Imp.”

"See, that's why Hoshi tripped you and not me."

When they move around the lilac bush, it becomes quickly apparent that S. Coups did manage to get the car home.  The car is parked neatly on top of the flattened mailbox.  Amusement starts to paint Jun’s face, but the second they step beyond the garden wall, his nose flares.  He reflexively crosses himself, a spot of revulsion settling in his throat.

“What is it?”

“Did you hit something?” he asks, averting his eyes toward the sky slowly turning light blue.

“The mailbox, clearly."

“I’m just going to walk.”  He doesn’t wait, but starts off toward the road.

“It’s too hot,” S. Coups calls after him, “I can drive.”

Jun really wishes that S. Coups wouldn’t push it.  He doesn’t want to explain.  “That thing won’t make it 2 miles down the road in heat like this.”

“I really don’t mind.”

“Seeing as you ran over some poor animal on the ride home and can’t remember you should probably just take it easy today.”

“What?”

He turns. “Your car smells like—you know,” he gestures vaguely and then starts down the road, trying to get the metallic smell out of his nose.   

. . .

The church green is empty and the stone building casts relieving shade across the wilting grass.  When Jun arrives at the wooden door to the side of the church, he pauses to wipe the sweat from his forehead.  He laments once again that being what he was had in no way removed the discomfort of heat or cold.

He loudly knocks on the door but only as a matter of principal.  The doors are always unlocked.

The door is opened almost a minute later by a short, balding man with round glasses.   

“Jun, it’s good to see you!  Come on in,” the deacon says, stepping to the side.  The inside of the church feels 10 degrees cooler than outside.  As the door shuts heavily, the deacon says, “You came alone today, I see.”

Jun answers while looking up at the high church ceilings.  “I don’t think anyone’s come with me for a year and a half.”

“I can always hope,” the deacon sighs brightly.

Jun looks over the stained glass window of St. Mary and remembers when Wonwoo suggested that he come here for the first time. Of all of them, he wouldn't have thought Wonwoo would ever suggest visiting a church.  Wonwoo had said in more or less words that it was something he figured Jun needed.

Still focused on the window, he remarks, “I guess they trust me enough to visit on my own, now.”

“Jun, I don’t believe it was ever you that they didn’t trust.”

If the deacon hadn’t known that he was right, Jun might have protested, but the man had been with the church for 30 years and Jun had been visiting him for the past seven. The man understands people above all else.  Plus, he fears Wonwoo may have chatted with the man earnestly about the situation.  He wouldn't put it past Wonwoo to threaten a deacon on his behalf.  That had proven unnecessary, though.  The deacon was not alarmed by strangeness.  

Already walking further into the church, the deacon says, “We’ve got a bit of a crunch for time if you don’t mind.  The organist is coming in early today to practice for a wedding.”

“I won’t be in for long.”  The last thing he wants is to run into anyone, especially other clergy.  Deacon Andrew was the only one who understood.  “Father Paul isn’t around this morning, is he?”

“No, the young man is off recounting the parish supper money I’m sure." 

. . .

The routine is so familiar now that they can walk back out of the church in comfortable silence.

As they stand at the exit, though, the deacon pauses at the door.  His gaze is unwavering in its earnestness.

“Jun, I wish I could convince you to attend a regular mass.”

“And, deacon, you know that’s probably not the best idea.”

“Why is that?”

They had been over this many times before.  The question is a challenge but it’s also an invitation.  The deacon hopes one day that Jun will run out of excuses.

He is not out of answers today.  “The congregation might find it odd that I don’t seem to age, deacon, don’t you think?”

“What of it?  That’s a 20-year problem, a 30-year problem.”

Jun stands there with his hands in his pockets.  He has more answers, but he doesn’t want to figure it out today.

“I am happy to continue our arrangement, Jun. I am thankful that you come to the church, that you pray, but do you feel that it may be a little dishonest for me to be offering confession and forgiveness for the sin of missing mass knowing you will miss it next week as well?”

“It’s the best I can do.”

When Jun moves to leave, he hears the man’s voice call him back, “Jun.”

“Yes?”

“There is something else.”

Jun comes back and the deacon lowers his voice.  His eyes focus closely on Jun behind his glasses.

“There have been disappearances as of late.  Some children have gone missing.”

The words hang ominously in the air, the deacon is watching him closely and he feels gripped by the words like an accusation.

“You don’t think. . .”

“No, Jun, I don’t.  But I know the company you keep.”

Jun bristles and tries to remember who he is talking to.  “None of the people I live with would—”

“I make no accusations, Jun, but if you hear anything-if you know anything.  It would be helpful and much appreciated, I’m sure.”

The words sound genuine, and the deacon steps back.  “I will see you soon.”

“Yeah,” Jun says distractedly, before he exits the church into the heat of the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The game is afoot! Sorry to hop around stories so much, guys. I want to get back to The Witch at the Well but this whole tale spun itself while I was at work trying to think through the dialogue in TWaTW and the first chapter was so quick and fun to write that I couldn't stop. 
> 
> Rated teen for the mythology this is based on. A lot of monster myths were used to scare children away from things with spooky/gory stories so be aware of some off-screen? violence and children vanishing.
> 
> Also this was during the group's great 60s village experiment which was a fun time during which some of them got jobs and they got a car and they actually interacted with people. Not a failed experiment but one that didn't last because, well, they're immortals.


	2. Chapter 2

Nothing but S. Coups’s legs are visible from under the car.  Still, he calls a greeting when Jun walks by.  “How was mass?”

Jun notes that the mailbox is miraculously resurrected.   The only mark of its earlier state is a series of parallel scratches in the paint.

“It was good,” he answers, even though part of him wants to correct Coups on the mass part. 

He spots a series of rectangular packages in brown paper leaning on the fence.  He eyes them for a moment, then scans the yard until he finds Jeonghan under the apple tree.  He excuses himself and walks over.

From where he is resting against the trunk of the tree, Jeonghan tilts up his head and asks, “How are you doing?”

“Fine.”

“You know that it took me all of 5 minutes to get that mailbox back in the ground but _he still won’t let me touch the car?”_ Jeonghan practically throws the second half of the sentence across the yard.

S. Coups twists out from under the vehicle, sits up, and yells back, “I’m doing fine, thanks,” then disappears underneath the front bumper again.

In a voice only loud enough for Jun to hear, Jeonghan says, “Should I tell him the engine is in the back or do you think he’ll figure it out on his own?”

Jun joins Jeonghan in observing S. Coups’s work, but he thinks of the paintings wrapped up by the fence.

“Are you going out of town?”

“Just until Tuesday.”

Jun bites at his fingernails. He hopes vaguely that Jeonghan isn’t taking the painting he had done in October of crows at the barn but he knows it would sell.  The elf had claimed at times to have been instructed by the elder Pieter Brueghel himself and there is as much likelihood that he is telling the truth as not.

“Hm?” he wonders as he comes back to himself and registers that something had been said. 

Jeonghan repeats, “Were you going to tell me what happened?” and waits for a response with a hand shading his eyes.   

Jun offers only a shrug, since Jeonghan’s mannerisms betray that he already knows.

Jeonghan stands and dusts off his pants, saying, “Don’t get involved.”  The words sound more hopeful in their message than authoritative.  "It never helps.”

Not a single part of Jun is convinced that Jeonghan believes that. 

The air is split by a sudden blaring honk.  They jump, and hear the loud thunk of metal when S. Coups whacks his head against the undercarriage of the car.

“Jesus, Hoshi!” he shouts as he rolls out from under the car.  He swivels his head wildly around the yard.  “I know that was you!”

Jun wants to laugh, but it’s pulled down like an anchor in the heat.  His smile fades quickly as he thinks of the smell of blood that had hovered in the air.  He can’t help that the deacon’s words swirl in his mind again like a drop of ink in water.  Jeonghan interrupts:   

_He hit an animal, Jun. It’s not what you’re thinking._

“I know that,” he says with enough confidence to sound like he never once wondered.  It’s probably pointless confidence.  Whether Jeonghan can actually read his mind or not, the cross of his arms betray what he's thinking.  It’s a comfort in some ways to be known that well, and also terrifying.

"If you get involved you’ll make the whole household seem suspicious.  And people are dangerous, Jun, far more than any one of us.”

The words are left where they are.  Stepping out into the sunlight, Jeonghan calls, “Give me less than 5 minutes, Seungcheol, and I swear to you I will have that car up and running.”

Coming out from under the car again, with sweat literally dripping from his nose, Coups complains, “Fine!  What minor miracle do you think you're going to perform that will compete with my mechanical expertise?”

Jeonghan holds out his hand, and S. Coups begrudgingly passes him the wrench he’d been holding. 

The second he has the tool, Jeonghan calls lazily, “Hoshi!”

The imp appears seconds later, a wire in his hands. 

“Put it back,” Jeonghan says.

With a heavy sigh, Hoshi agrees, “Fine.  But there can only be one imp,” and he vanishes with a bit of a pop.

Jeonghan raises his eyebrows with a sense of superior triumph, and tosses the wrench toward the weeds at the fence.  “Come on,” he says to S. Coups’s barely contained, indignant shock.  “We’ve got places to be.”  He throws a look at Jun over his shoulder.  “Tell the others we said bye.”

“Yeah, will do,” he says. 

He watches them bicker as they start to gather the paintings to add to the backseat of the car and tries to guess which ones they're taking.  When it finally seems like he's going to melt under the heat, he turns and heads back up to the house, wondering at how big and empty it suddenly seems.  He can't quantify yet if the feeling in his chest is more due to the impression of freedom or incompleteness that the house holds in their absence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm having way too much fun with this one, guys. It's going to fly by on the power of short chapters and inspiration.


	3. Chapter 3

When Jun enters the house, he winds his way aimlessly around for a while. Eventually he follows the sound of a pedestal fan whirring to Mingyu perched upside down in the armchair of Jeonghan’s now vacated room.  The fan is oscillating a foot away from him and it’s ruffling at his clothes.  He seems quite comfortable despite the fact that blood must be rushing to his head.

“Hey,” Jun interrupts.

“Yeah?” Mingyu wonders with his eyes still closed.

When it takes too long for Jun to answer, Mingyu cracks open an eye.

“I have a question,” Jun is compelled to say at last.

Mingyu picks at a hole in the woven material of the armchair. “Shoot.”

“Could you trace back a specific event?  If you were at the spot where it had happened?”

Mingyu tilts his head and lets his hand flop backward toward the ground in a way that makes it difficult to take him seriously. “Well, yeah.  But I’d need something to anchor to.” He is talking with his hands, and Jun suspects he is enjoying the way gravity pulls on his limbs.  “I can’t just see back whenever.  I’d need someone who was there at the time.”

“A witness,” Jun supplied.

“Right.”

“Okay.” 

He tries to leave, then, but Mingyu calls after him, “Why did you ask?”

“Nothing,” he reassures.

If it hadn’t been so hot, he is certain that Mingyu would have gotten up to pad after him with a string of curious questions.  But it is too hot, and he continues his wandering alone.

The bedroom doors are all open into darkness.  The dining room is empty.  Aiming to climb the staircase to the second floor, he slips into the kitchen and finds Wonwoo with his back to the open freezer door.  The grumble of the motor fills the space. 

“Are they gone, then?” Wonwoo asks knowingly.

“Yeah.”

The other looks over the glass of orange juice in his hand.  “Finally.  Maybe we’ll have a few days of quiet around here.”

It’s only when Wonwoo shuts the freezer door that Jun fully appreciates the reality of what he was saying.

It’s profoundly quiet. 

He wonders if it’s Jeonghan’s absence that has cleared the airways.  It’s almost eerie, like a new house before the furniture has been moved in.  The brightness of the day should make the atmosphere peaceful, but Jun hates being able to hear his own thoughts echo in his head. 

While he watches Wonwoo cross to the table and sit down, he recalls how on hot days, the older would chew on mint leaves like candy to keep cool.  He wonders if Wonwoo might have mixed some into his orange juice until the imagined flavors hits his tongue and he twists his face at the taste. 

Wonwoo interrupts the thoughts as he shoots out, “Certainly could use a little more peace and quiet, huh?”  His focus shifts to practically draining the entirety of his orange juice in one go.  As soon as the glass touches the table, though, Wonwoo catches Jun biting his nails.  There is an old frown in his voice as he guesses, “Or not?”

Jun tests the waters. “How was the paper this morning?”

With swift perceptiveness, Wonwoo rolls his eyes. “What did he say?”

“Well—”

The witch tilts his chair back from the table and sighs dispassionately, “I swear I’ll kill him.”

“He just wanted to hear if we knew—”

“ _Of course_ he did, Jun.  Why _wouldn’t_ he ask the monsters next door if they’re snacking on the neighborhood children?”

Jun protests quietly, “He didn’t say that.”

“Don’t be naïve, Jun, it’s what he meant.”

Jun debates saying nothing as Wonwoo draws a line into the condensation on the empty glass.  He barely raises his voice in the end, but the house is profoundly quiet and his words carry.  “Can you blame him?”

This time there is real anger in Wonwoo’s voice when he stands to his full height, “I’ll actually kill him.”

Jun pushes down his conflicting instincts to shrink away or to defend the deacon.

Wonwoo catches on, and with clear attempts at measuring his words, says, “This happens, Jun.  Children get lost, they have terrible accidents, they get taken.  And we aren’t more likely to be at fault than anyone else.  He shouldn’t have suggested otherwise.  Not to you.”

Jun shrugs in defeat.  “You’re right.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“You are,” Jun says.

Wonwoo frowns at Jun in a way that suggests he is trying to read his mind.

Jun thinks again of the smell of blood on S. Coups’s car and the split second where he had wondered.  “But I’d be asking everyone, too.”

“We can’t do anything,” Wonwoo warns.

“You and Coups used to do things like this all the time.”

“That was so long ago, Jun.  There weren’t any cameras or reporters or police back then.  The only thing getting involved will do is make us look suspicious.”

Jun’s arms snake around himself and he looks off toward the floor.  He hates that Wonwoo is right.

Stepping around the table, Wonwoo tries to drop a hand onto Jun’s neck in an offer of peace but Jun shrugs back.

“Jun, please don’t,” Wonwoo sighs as Jun refuses to meet his eyes.  “I can’t do anything,” he insists, “None of us can magically fix this.  I can cure poison ivy and prevent chicken pox and ward a house, but I can’t find people who go missing.”

“I used to wish—”  Jun cuts himself off.

“What?”

“I used to wish someone had bothered to look.”

He holds Wonwoo’s gaze unblinking and fierce.  Wonwoo forgets how to swallow.  He thinks of the fight for logic in Jun’s words and the fever the night he’d said _no one questions if one person goes missing after a while._   And he thought of the later nights when Jun had whispered about the impossible loneliness of hope when no one is coming.

“I can scry for them,” Wonwoo says while adrenaline is pouring into his veins. “I’d need something to focus the crystal on but I could try.”

Joshua steps into the room.  “What are we talking about?”

“It’s nothing,” Wonwoo says in that voice he uses whenever Joshua is around.  The soft tiptoeing of his words almost feels patronizing to Jun, but he knows that it isn’t on purpose.

Today it’s more obvious, though.  Maybe because the house is emptier.  Joshua has been experiencing a high volume of good days and it’s almost guaranteed that something would go wrong just as S. Coups and Jeonghan leave. 

“It’s sad.”

“Did you hear?” Jun wonders.  Wonwoo shoots him a warning look.

The answer takes a while to travel to the surface.  Joshua goes to the fridge and stares at it for a moment like he can’t remember what he’s doing.  He announces suddenly, “They’re too loud for Saturday.”

“Who?”

“Everyone praying for the kids to turn up.”  There is sudden clarity and focus in Joshua when he catches himself into their conversation.  “Are we going to help?”

Wonwoo’s gaze draws like a magnet to Jun.  “Yeah,” he says, “We are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting before my battery dies for the night!


	4. Chapter 4

The collection of maps spread across the table flutter when Hoshi appears all at once, holding a glove in his hand.

Wonwoo meets him halfway.  “Did they see you?”

“Only the grandmother.”

The witch’s eyes widen and Hoshi holds up his hands as a defense.  “I’m kidding!”

The glove is pulled roughly out of his hands.

From the other side of the room, Jun comments, “This doesn’t feel right."  He’s sitting on top of the trunk they had dug through to find the collection of campground flyers, tourist maps, and road books that are now spread across the table. 

“You’re the one who wanted to do this,” Wonwoo reminds him.

“I know but. . .” he doesn’t finish the thought.  The air in the attic is dense and electric and it intensifies the feeling of secrecy.

Wonwoo turns back to Hoshi and jerks his head toward the door.  “We’re all set now.”

“You’ll want me to stay,” Hoshi counters, “Either me or Mingyu.”

Surprisingly, Wonwoo doesn’t try to protest, but the look on his face reminds Jun of the taste of mint in orange juice. 

“Why is that?” he dares to ask.

Hoshi vanishes and reappears standing on one of the rafters.  “He’ll need a boost,” he answers as he pushes open a stubborn skylight.  The commotion is enough to disturb whatever song bird must had been sitting on the roof.  They can hear it fly off in a flurry of panicked sounds. 

“Scrying is unreliable,” Wonwoo half-answers, waving his hand at the descending puff of dust Hoshi had dislodged from the ceiling.

“That’s what the glove is for,” Jun says to check his understanding, “to help you hone in.”

“Not me” Wonwoo corrects, “the crystal.  I’m telling it what to do, I’m not guiding it.”

“It’s my job to tune the station,” Hoshi affirms, nodding vigorously.

“Then get down here,” Wonwoo says with a familiar, reassuring irritability.  Hoshi drops down soundlessly then swings a stool over next to Wonwoo with a heavy scrape over the floor.

The witch grumbles, “Well, if they didn’t already know where we are, they certainly will now.”

“In this house?  Who’s gonna care?” Hoshi asks incredulously, hopping up to sit cross legged on the stool at Wonwoo’s side.  And this time it’s Wonwoo that doesn’t have an answer. The attic feels forbidden with dust paralyzed in the heavy light that enters through the gaps in the roof.  It’s hard even to breathe. 

The floorboards clunk and whine under Wonwoo’s feet as he paces around the table, eventually settling on a spot where he pulls the crystal out of his pocket.  

Jun leans forward.  The crystal is tied to a piece of frayed twine.  The stone itself is cracked and opaque in places where it shouldn’t be.  Wonwoo thoughtlessly shakes it around in his hand like dice.

Then, with a roll of his shoulders, Wonwoo fidgets around until he gets the crystal and himself situated.  He dangles the string between his fingers over the maps.  But he pulls back. “Before I do this—” he stops himself, an unwanted note in his voice.  He starts again in a more controlled tone, “This is going to send out a signal like a radio.  I’m amplifying what the crystal does, and it’s going to broadcast out from the house.  I have no control over anyone or anything out there that picks up on it.” 

It takes a few moments of thought for Jun to understand what Wonwoo is trying to say:  they’re about to light the house up like a beacon to anything that might come to call.

“Do it,” he says, unblinking, so that Wonwoo can see the certainty in his eyes.

Wonwoo inhales deeply, and exhales back out on, “Alright, then.”   He turns his attention back to the task.  He starts moving the stone, rotating the string over the pages.  Hoshi doesn’t seem to be doing anything besides watching. 

Wonwoo closes his eyes.  His mouth moves in the shape of words that Jun can’t hear or recognize.  He seems utterly calm, though, and so does Hoshi.  It’s almost anticlimactic except it’s so hot up in the attic that a buzzing tension is palpable. 

The crystal starts to swing back and forth like a pendulum.  The weight of it drags down on Wonwoo’s hand and then the pendulum hits the page. The only evidence at all that any magic has taken place is that Wonwoo swipes a sleeve at his forehead.  When he looks down at the map, a frown quickly falls over his face.

“What?” Jun urges, heading over to the table.  Wonwoo pulls the crystal back off the map and catches it in his hand. 

“Nothing,” he says, “We got it wrong.”

“Where was it?” he asks with increasing curiosity, leaning over the collection of maps and tilting his head to turn the words right side up.

“It was wrong.” Wonwoo says more forcefully.

Jun pulls back from the map to search Wonwoo’s face, but the other’s expression is set.

“Was it the house?”

“No.”

Jun catches the answer in Hoshi’s expression before the imp manages to blank out his face.

“It was the church, wasn’t it?”

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Wonwoo deflects, which serves to confirm it.

Jun processes the idea.  “You said it can be wrong, right?”

Wonwoo seems relieved by how controlled the statement is, and responds with the courtesy of honesty, “It could be that the kid wore the gloves to church a few times.  It could be that a relative is there now.” 

Instead of letting Wonwoo continue on, Jun deflects with a question that’s buzzing around in his throat. “Is Woozi up here?”

“No.”

“Yes.”

Wonwoo and Hoshi look at one another after their overlapping answers.  Hoshi proves to be right when Woozi’s voice intrudes, “It looks like a kids’ sleepover in here.” 

Woozi is on the top step to the attic. He is, incredibly, wearing a shirt with long sleeves despite how oppressive the heat is.  “When do we crack open the Ouija board?” 

His question is met with a noticeable silence.

“What are you all up to?”

“Nothing,” Wonwoo says evenly.  He pushes at one of the maps to slide it into a new position as if he had been interrupted in doing so. 

“Seriously?” the fae says with the tone of an eyeroll, “The old folks are gone kids, I’m not going to rat you out.”

Wonwoo mumbles something about his age like he’s offended by the idea that he’d grouped in the kids category and not the old folks category.

“Did you read the paper,” Jun ventures to ask, which gets Woozi’s attention fixed on him. 

Woozi answers with heightened focus. “Yes.”

“That’s what we’re doing,” Jun says back.

Woozi’s stare lasts a second longer and he nods like he’s figured it out.  Then with a collapsing intensity he paces further into the attic.  “Why not have Mingyu do this?  It’s more his area.”  He gets close enough to the table to run a hand over the curling edge of one of the maps. 

“You know why,” Wonwoo says, which is somewhat of a mystery to Jun.  He had been about to answer that Mingyu would need a witness.

“I mean, _I’m_ here,” Hoshi supplies.  He has dropped one of his legs down and is bouncing it against the leg of the stool.

“How did it go?” Woozi asks, ignoring the latter comment.

“It’s a work in progress.”

“That well?” the fae jokes back, raising an eyebrow, but there is something faltering in his interactions with the space.  His hand sits too long on the table.  His smile fades too slowly off his face.  His eyes hold on a second too long.  “You’re wasting your time,” he suddenly says unprompted.

“Why?” Jun asks. 

Woozi taps at a large section of the map that is just forest and lakes.  “You want to find your kids, you take the other maps off the table and just scry this one.  You’ll get some answers at the very least.”

When Woozi proceeds to walk back the way he’d come, Wonwoo says after him, “You really think it’s faeries?”

Woozi pauses at the top of the stairs. “If they’re not involved they’ll know what is.”

He starts to head down the stairs.

“Where are you going?” Hoshi asks after him like he knows something.  He is not gifted with a response. Jun flashes a look at both Wonwoo and Hoshi but neither of them return it.  To the fading backdrop of Woozi descending the stairs, he questions, “You don’t think he’s going to—”

“Come on,” Wonwoo interrupts, already shuffling the maps.  He doesn’t move any off of the table but he does bring the one Woozi had touched to the center on top of the rest.

A drip of guilt moving through him, Jun apologizes quietly, “I didn’t want anyone to. . .”

“We’re doing this,” Wonwoo cuts him off, but it’s almost kind.

Jun lingers on the empty stairwell, but then Wonwoo snaps to get his attention and points.  He gets the message.  Wonwoo hasn’t looked up from the maps but Jun isn’t insulted.  He knows how Wonwoo’s mind works when he’s focused on something.  He goes across the room to stand by the door and keep anyone else from coming up.

“You can’t scry faerie country,” Hoshi says with a note of warning, “they'll block it."

“Then they’ll just have to say what’s on their mind,” Wonwoo counters dismissively.

The glove is unsettled in his hand.  He eventually drapes it over the top of his wrist and holds it there.  With the hand underneath he has the crystal once more hanging over the maps.  He closes his eyes and resumes the same ritual as before.

The crystal starts off moving in smooth circles.  Wonwoo is like a statue, perfectly still and commanding. Hoshi is tracing the swing of the crystal with his eyes.  Jun tries the same for a bit but it starts to make him dizzy.  He looks up at the rafters and blinks it away.

He wonders if Woozi plans on finding out more on his own and hopes not.  He doesn’t have a good relationship with the fair folk.

His attention is pulled back when in the corner of his eye he sees the crystal moving erratically—bouncing off of invisible barriers in the air as if it’s in a pinball machine.

Wonwoo’s hand snaps onto Hoshi’s shoulder out of nowhere.  The white-knuckle grip would have left a bruise on any one of them.  But Hoshi is unaffected.   

The witch’s lips are moving rapidly over silent words that occasionally rise to the level of hearing, but they sound like nonsense. 

“What’s wrong?” Jun asks with controlled concern.

Hoshi holds a finger to his lips but then answers quietly, “Obviously all of it isn’t faerie country but they’re territorial. They’ll be mad he’s scrying.”

“What does that mean?”

“They’re arguing,” Hoshi clarifies with a reassuring smile.

Jun has to stop himself from moving.  Nothing about Wonwoo’s face indicates distress, but he can’t stop seeing how hard his fingers are digging into Hoshi’s shoulder.  The glove is still draped loosely over his wrist where the crystal is spinning and twisting.

And then the twine frays and snaps. 

Wonwoo curses and opens his eyes as the crystal hits and spins across the table.  He’s breathing somewhat heavily and his hand is still latched onto Hoshi’s shoulder. 

“Faerie interference?” Hoshi asks casually.

Wonwoo nods.  “Woozi was right,” he says, tilting his arm so that the glove slides off his wrist and plops onto the table.  “They know something.  Stubborn assholes.”

Jun moves forward, only half hearing the words.  He’s zeroed in on the crystal and the way some of the opaque discoloration almost glows still in the light. 

“I mean it was worth a shot,” Hoshi says, “There’s still a chance Woozi will get something.”

“It would be better if he left it alone.”

Jun makes it to the table.

“No look,” he says, tracing his finger over the map, “it landed somewhere.”

“The whole table is covered in maps,” Wonwoo dismisses.

“It’s dead center, though, I swear.”

Wonwoo and Hoshi crowd closer around the table, Hoshi actually pops up so he’s crouched on top of it.  Wonwoo is so keen to figure out what Jun means that he doesn’t even yell at Hoshi for being on the maps.

“See,” Jun points to the perfect alignment of the crystal--the point dead center against a set of word against the dark background of the map.

“I guess point taken,” Hoshi says like it’s surprising.

“Yeah,” Wonwoo agrees with suspicion, “but why are they helping?”

Jun puts his finger on the center of the lake where the crystal points through the label.  “Only one way to find out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait! The chapter is longer this time at least! The business I'm experiencing right now is out of control but it's a good busy. Just hate that it keeps me from writing!


	5. Chapter 5

Wonwoo’s shirt is half soaked through by the time they reach the end of the path.  Seven miles of road are behind them.  The trails down to the loch alternate between shade and sunlight, but the concrete streets they had taken to reach them were unforgiving. 

On the way, he had grumbled more than necessary about the need for a second car.  He had also failed to hide his discontent when a town bus stopped 20 yards ahead and Jun hesitated too long to decide whether he wanted to take it or not.  The heat of the day had removed Wonwoo’s higher sympathies because he fantasized for the rest of the walk about Jun turning every bus driver in the county into vampires so at the very least they’d have transportation available when needed.

As they reach the end of the worn trail, grass rolls forward from the tree line and melts into gravel along the edge of the lake.  But they are not alone.  The shoreline is dotted with a dozen or more small groups. There is a cluster of older women in big hats and bathing suits down by the water and a few kids splashing in the lake, but most folks are whispering amongst themselves—too close in the big space of the sweltering afternoon.  Whether consciously or not, Jun moves closer to him when they come into sight of it.  His voice is practically at his ear. “Why are they here?”

“Because it’s hot,” Wonwoo answers as he continues to pick apart the crowd.  A few are carrying on earnest conversations with strangers while their eyes are fixed on the children at the waters’ edge.  It’s like the tragedy has reached its fingers out to the lake from the shadow of the trees.  Wonwoo doesn’t know why the fair folk would send them here.

“The police are here.”

Wonwoo cranes his neck and pushes up onto his toes.  “Where?”

Jun grabs his arm and points.  It takes a while for his eyes to pick apart the crowd of strangers to find the distinct uniform. The officer is having an intent discussion with a couple from the crowd and doesn’t seem bothered or aware that the couple’s child is petting the dog whose leash he holds.

“Gods and holidays,” Wonwoo breathes with exasperation.

“What?”

He turns to face Jun so that his back is to the scene.  “Tell me that isn't Joshua.”

He watches and waits as Jun squints past his shoulder.  The other’s eyes grow wide tellingly. 

“How did he get here?” Jun wonders, genuinely baffled.   

Wonwoo can only think of the whispering crowd and the undercurrent of fear in the air.  He risks a glance back and sees once more Joshua kneeling beside the child and the charmingly round dog.   How no one has noticed him he doesn’t know, but he’s afraid of what it looks like.  Joshua’s smile at the child is quiet.

Jun scans the surroundings with obvious anxiety, “What do we do?”

Wonwoo hesitates. 

“Wait here,” he says before he’s fully thought it through.

He gives Jun a nod to confirm that he understands and then moves subtly toward the scene.

The walk across the space feels too long but no one seems to be watching as he reaches Joshua’s side.  He quietly pulls him to his feet.

Joshua struggles to gain his footing as his gaze stays fixated on the child petting the dog.

“We need to go,” Wonwoo tells him.

“We’re at the loch,” he responds distantly, like it’s just sinking in.

“Yeah,” he acknowledges carefully, realizing he’s not going to get Joshua to go anywhere if he doesn’t play this through.  He tries to relax the urgency of his grip on Joshua’s arm.  “Did you follow Woozi?”  It starts to fully sink in that Joshua is seven miles from home and not a single one of them knew.

“No,” Joshua says, appearing entirely present as he meets Wonwoo’s eyes, “he went walking with the faeries.”

He tries to feel relief that Joshua’s gaze is level but there’s something odd in his eyes.  “Right,” he acknowledges softly, “We sent Hoshi to get him.”  He looks back and sees Jun standing across the crowd.  “But come on,” he pulls a little to get Joshua to move, “We can’t stay here.”

Joshua’s feet are planted.  “No.”

. . .

Jun feels like a post in the middle of a field even though, from his position, he’s mostly out of sight.  Wonwoo is now with Joshua just a few feet away from the policeman but he is the only one in the crowd that seems to be watching.  It’s like no one else notices they’re there:  not even the child petting the dog beside them or the couple facing their direction.

But Jun can’t get rid of the itching feeling that he’s being watched.

Something in the corner of his vision moves.  He darts his eyes in the direction of the trees.

A black cat is sitting on the gnarled roots, its tail flicking.  When it realizes it’s been spotted, the cat slips out of sight into the woods.  Jun spares one more glance at Wonwoo and Joshua then follows.

“Hello?” he calls.  He moves into the undergrowth.  Hoshi steps out from behind a tree in front of him and he has to stop himself from jumping. 

“What are they doing?”

Jun is too preoccupied searching past Hoshi to answer properly.  “I don't know. Where’s Woozi?” he asks, “He's with you, right?”

“Yes, he’s around the corner trying to stop the good witch and angel boy from being seen by the police.”

Jun turns back but they’re too far in to see past the trees. “They’re invisible,” he realizes.

“Illusioned,” Hoshi corrects, “No one should see them unless they’re looking at them.”

He wants to feel relief but something in Hoshi’s face won’t let him. “I thought you and Woozi were going to speak to the fair folk.”

“We did.  The faeries aren’t happy, Jun.  They don’t like it.”

“Don’t like what?”

His answer is ominous.  “Joshua.”

. . .

Distraction in the form of the dog sniffing around his legs prevents Wonwoo from pulling Joshua any further.  The child has sat back but doesn’t look up at him.  He wonders at it, then makes the mistake of trying to move his leg out of the way of the dog.

The dog starts barking.

The officer and those he was talking to turn.  The child is scooped up by the mother as the policeman and others in the crowd start to tune in to the scene.

The officer glances around with confusion and apologizes generally, “Sorry, she can be overly eager when she’s on the job.”

“It’s not a problem,” Wonwoo says, still trying to move away.

The dog is pawing at him now, nose pointed high.

The policeman zeros in like he has seen him for the first time. Wonwoo can almost feel the steady analysis running in the policeman’s head. 

“What brings you down to the lake today?” the policeman questions without prompting, pulling back on the dog’s leash.

The dog is no longer barking but is yearning against the leash with one paw raised.   Realization burns through Wonwoo’s throat and he has to stop his hand from ducking into his pocket where the glove is tucked away.

“Would you mind emptying your pockets for me, sir?”

“Why?”  It pops out like a guilty sign before he can stop it. 

“Matter of routine.  She won’t quit a scent until she’s had a chance to investigate it.” He indicates the dog with a light tug on the leash.

Wonwoo flips through a dozen possible ways this could go and none of them bode well.  He lifts his hand slightly and hesitates again. 

“We’re going to help.”

Wonwoo snaps his attention onto Joshua, his mouth half open.  “Josh,” he warns.

“We’re helping,” he repeats.

Wonwoo tries to follow the reasoning in Joshua’s pressing gaze.  “Yeah, we heard—in the papers.” His words plan themselves as they leave his mouth.  It clicks as he brings up the paper why there are so many people at the lake who seem to have no interest in the water.  “We wanted to help with the search,” he finishes.

“That so?” the policeman says with healthy skepticism.

“We found something, actually,” Wonwoo continues, reaching into his pocket and producing the glove.  “We weren’t sure if it would be helpful, but I came over to show it to you just in case it meant anything.”

The dog is whining with excitement as Wonwoo hands over the glove to the officer.  With a raise of his eyebrow, the office looks over the glove.  “Where did you find this?”

“By the side of the trail just where the trees break.” He points behind himself and subtly pulls Joshua a bit closer when it seems like he’s going to open his mouth.  Joshua wouldn’t lie.  Not outright, anyway, and a lie is what they need now.  “Looks like it might belong to a kid.”

There is a long pause as the policeman looks over the glove, apparently thinking through his next move.  He drops it down by his dog who sniffs it over completely.

“It’s cold,” Joshua states and Wonwoo shoots him a look that’s half concern.  It's so hot he's sweating through his shirt.  But Joshua doesn’t lie and he’s shivering under his hand.  

“Thank you,” the officer suddenly says.  There is almost a tug of the smile at the policeman’s expression.

Wonwoo is continuing to wonder over Joshua for a moment and doesn’t realizes at first how quiet it’s gotten.  His gaze draws up.

Each and every person in the crowd is beaming.  They’re not so much holding conversations anymore as they are just smiling happily at one another.  A chill runs down Wonwoo’s spine and he feels goosebumps run over his arms.

“They’re not going to find him,” Joshua responds.

Wonwoo shushes him but Joshua plows on, “The lake has him.  But they were so upset, we had to give them something.” Joshua is shivering while the sun beats down on the frozen crowd.

“It’s okay,” he says, realizing the officer isn’t reacting to the words.  No one is reacting.  They’re all just smiling, uncommonly still.  Only the dog keeps moving, nose to the ground as she walks in circles. “But you have to let them go, Joshua,” he says carefully.

Joshua looks up at him with clear eyes. “It isn’t me.”

Wonwoo’s vision tunnels.  His pulse thuds in his ears as it draws his focus to the lake.  There’s nothing.  But there is something.  Across the lake on the opposite shore.  He brings a hand up to shade his eyes.  The pine trees are broad and dense across the way and they stand in parallels.  He squints to try to make out anything that breaks the distorting patterns.  There’s a dark shadow standing there all in black. 

He blinks.  There is only the illusion created by the undergrowth against the trees. 

“We should go.”  He’s willing to risk the appearance that they’ve vanished to escape the focus he can still feel burned into the back of his neck.  He puts his hand on Joshua’s shoulder and moves him along.  They go slowly, afraid to disturb the forest of half frozen people.

“You saw him," Joshua says.

Suddenly, as one, every face in the crowd drops.  The noise level rises, and not a single person pays them any mind.

Wonwoo breathes out and adjusts his arm across Joshua’s back.  “Come on,” he says, willing to ignore the words as he bundles him along back to where he’d left Jun before the officer the dog or anyone else can notice them again. 

When he gets there Jun is standing just at the line of the trees. 

“You’re brilliant,” Jun compliments, “Insane, but brilliant.”  The attempts at a smile on his face fade. “Are you guys okay?”

“We shouldn’t be here,” Wonwoo says by way of answer.  “We’ll talk on the way back.”

Suddenly he doesn’t care that it’s seven miles to home.  He wants the walk.  He wants the time to think about what they’d seen.

“Okay,” Jun says with confusion, “Hoshi and Woozi said they’d meet us there.”

Wonwoo stops.  “You saw them?”

“Yeah, Woozi was trying to keep you hidden but obviously he can’t do anything about the dog.  And you know he’s never in a good mood when he's interacted with faeries so he was swearing up a storm."

The news brings a frown across Wonwoo’s face.  Maybe that was all it was.  “Right.”

“So what happened?”

“What do you mean?” Wonwoo asks, moving them along.

“I mean we lost sight of you both  after you handed over the glove.  How’d you shake off the officer?”

Wonwoo stops in his tracks.  “You didn’t see it?”

“See what?”

“The people stopped,” Joshua said hollowly.

Jun stepped up closer.  “What?”

The look on Jun’s face is so nervous that Joshua responds with rare humor and pats at the side of his face.  “You need glasses.”

Jun hesitantly plays with the idea of a smile, “Yeah, I guess.”

They continue walking.  When Jun is distracted by his thoughts, Joshua gives Wonwoo a look.  Wonwoo can't tell if he's reassured or concerned that the look is asking him not to say anything.  But he agrees.  He doesn’t know how much he understands about what happened and what drove Joshua to the lake in the first place, but he can’t help but suspect that the fair folk sent them along to stop him. Whatever that means.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of those chapters where I start off thinking I'm in charge of the story and then the story reminds me that no, it is very much in charge of itself and it refuses to tell me where it's going. 
> 
> Long? chapter that got me stuck for ages but now it's past my bedtime and I just want to post. More updates to other stories soon! (Hopefully!)


	6. Chapter 6

They stop two times on their way back from the lake to rest and both times Wonwoo pretends that it isn’t for Joshua’s sake.  In the end he decides they should wait on the main road for the bus. He doesn’t have to do any convincing this time.

They sit squished three in a row although it’s too hot and the bus is nearly empty.  Jun feels the need to keep up a commentary about some obscure mystery he had watched on the TV and Joshua appears to listen though his eyelids keep dropping shut.  Wonwoo just lets the words play in the background as he looks out the opposite window, lost in thought.

At some point Joshua must have nodded off for a moment because he pitches forward with a gasp.  Jun pulls him back against the seat and keeps his arm across his shoulders the rest of the ride.  Now as Jun continues his story, Joshua, whose eyes are slightly wider than before, nods or hums his response.  Only then does it become clear that Jun is recounting the story to give Joshua something to focus on. 

Wonwoo adds this to the thoughts running laps in his mind.

When they arrive back home from the bus stop, they have to wait an extra moment as Jun bends down to scoop up something from the pavement.  He shows off the lethargic bee in his hand with something like excitement. 

“Hey,” he bumps into Wonwoo, his face taking on that boyish expression, “what’s a bee’s favorite sport?”

“I swear if you say rugby I’m locking you out of the house.”

Jun’s face falls. “That’s fair.”

This is far from the first time that Jun has made a mission out of reviving a half-dead bee, so Wonwoo doesn’t stop him from showing it off to a reluctant Joshua on the walk to the rear of the house.

There are voices from the kitchen when they reach the back porch.  Wonwoo supposes that Hoshi and Woozi must have beaten them home. He almost envies their speed, but he expects that Woozi won’t be in the best mood after his meeting with the fair folk and it’s probably better if he’s had a chance to vent before they arrive.

Now, as he pushes open the screen door, he stops to say, “You can’t bring the bee in the house, remember?”

Jun responds with a magnificent frown.  Joshua stops alongside him as Wonwoo steps inside.

“Can you _believe_ him?”

Joshua gives him a bit of a funny look, but it’s not clear if he understands the joke.  Instead, without warning, he drops his hand over the bee in Jun’s palm.  Jun makes to pull back quickly, but Joshua doesn’t press down.  He just lifts his hand again, and the bee buzzes, crawling frantically around in Jun’s hands before flying off.

Now it’s Jun’s turn to give Joshua a funny look.

Joshua stares back in a way that doesn’t quite seem like him, then turns to the screen door.  He trips or collapses somewhat and Jun has to steady him.

“You okay?”

“Oh,” Joshua says in a way that seems much more like him, “yeah.”  He makes sure Jun can see the smile on his face.

Reluctant in his confusion, Jun holds open the screen door.

They both crowd inside behind Wonwoo. 

The only person in the kitchen is Mingyu.  There is no sign that Woozi and Hoshi are even home yet.

“Hey,” Wonwoo greets.

Mingyu turns, the phone pressed to his ear. 

“He’s right here, actually.  Hold on a sec.”  He pulls the phone away and covers the mouth piece.  “The deacon is on the phone.  He wants to talk to you.”

With a small, “Oh,” Jun steps forward, passing control of Joshua’s shoulder along to Wonwoo.

“Not you,” Mingyu corrects, holding out the phone to Wonwoo instead.

Wonwoo frowns, looks at Jun, then takes the phone, maneuvering the cord around Mingyu as he moves closer to the wall.  “Yes, hello.  This is he.”

“Where did you guys go this morning?" Mingyu whispers at Jun’s ear.  He does not seem aware of the fact that Jun is trying to eavesdrop.  “I got up and all of you were gone.”

“We went to the lake,” he answers, trying to look around him to Wonwoo who is engaged now in confused conversation, “there was a search party for the missing kids.”

“The house was empty.  No one told me where you were going.”

He starts to explain that they didn’t all really plan to go, but the screen door whooshes shut behind him.  He turns and realizes that Joshua has vanished outside again.  “One second,” he excuses himself to slip out after him.

The sun is burning at its afternoon height and Jun has to squint against it.  “Hey.” He comes down to stand next to Joshua who sits on the bottom step in the direct flood of light.  “It’s too hot out here.  Let’s go back inside.”

“Why am I cold?” Joshua’s head is tilted up at the sun like he’s trying to absorb it. 

Jun sits down slowly on the wooden step beside him.  “I don’t know.”

Joshua stays in his odd worship of the sun then turns to look at Jun.  “They aren’t going to find the kid.”

“Maybe they will.”

“They won’t.”  It frightens Jun how sure he is.

A frown settles on Joshua’s face like he knows what Jun is thinking.  His gaze drifts to a gathering of milkweed that’s growing up alongside the porch.  “Can I tell you a secret?”

Discomfort nestles around Jun’s heart.  Part of him is always a little afraid of what Joshua might have to say.  “Yeah,” he answers out loud, trying not to think about how he can practically hear Joshua’s pulse from here.

“I don’t remember how we got to the lake.” He turns to give Jun something of a sad, self-aware smile.  “Isn’t that strange?”

For a brief moment, he lets alarm settle in his eyes:  Joshua thought they went down to the lake together.  He knows his laugh probably doesn’t sound reassuring but he counters, “What isn’t strange around here?”

Joshua pushes another smile onto his face but it doesn’t reach his eyes and Jun wishes he hadn’t tried to make light of things.  He scratches at the back of his head and suggests, “I think things are good, though, right?  They’re better.”  He’s not confident enough to say anything more specific.  He can’t even say _you’re_ better, because he’s not sure that Joshua is.

As if to show appreciation for the effort, Joshua answers, “You don’t pray as much.”

Jun doesn’t know what else to do but nod at the offering.

“Hey.” They twist backward to see Mingyu leaning out the door.  “Wonwoo says they found the missing kid.”

. . .

Wonwoo faces the wall while he talks and keeps his voice as low as he can, but he can feel the others watching him. 

“How did you find him?” he asks again.

The deacon’s answer is crackling over the phone, _“A parishioner found him down by the duck pond across from the church green.  Seems like he must have been wandering in the woods all night.”_

Wonwoo scratches at a piece of peeling wallpaper alongside the phone cradle that is mounted on the wall.  None of this is settling right.  He thinks back on the crystal hitting the map above the church.  They had been right the first time.  Yet the faeries had insisted on the lake. 

_“I’m calling on behalf of his parents, actually.”_

“Did they request me?” 

_“I recommended you.”_

He risks a glance over his shoulder and sees Mingyu making no shame over his listening in.  Jun seems half distracted, though, his hand at his mouth.  Wonwoo drops his volume, uncomfortable at the idea that the deacon would use his name, and not wanting to broadcast it. “Is the doctor out of town?”  The previous winter he had been on-call for the local doctor when he’d sprained his ankle, but he hadn’t tried to make a name for himself and he hadn’t recognized the family from the newspaper to suggest that he’d visited them before.  It makes no sense to call on him.

_“No, he has already paid his visit, but. . . I think in this matter a second opinion would be helpful.”_

He picks apart the careful wording.  A bit of surprise settles in him over what he realizes the deacon means. “Do you think this might require my area of expertise?”

“ _At this point I think it would be wrong to rule anything out._ ”

He finds himself feeling an uncommon sort of respect for the deacon.  He seems in tune to the oddness of the situation as much as he is, even if it is outside the realm of the church.

“When would you be looking for me?”

_“As soon as you are able to arrive.”_

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Jun animate and makes a big show of mouthing something that Wonwoo doesn’t quite get. 

He covers the receiver and whispers, “What?” as he simultaneously makes note of the address the deacon is delivering over the phone. 

 _"Ask him if you can bring Mingyu,”_ Jun mouths, pointing with both hands at the other.  Mingyu catches on to the gestures but misses the message.

“Um, could I bring an assistant?” he says into the phone, interrupting the gratitude of the deacon’s closing remarks and shrugging at Jun when he seems uncertain about the wording.

_“If you are able to provide help, you could probably bring a horse into the room and the family would allow you the opportunity.”_

He nods so that Jun knows and then concludes, “Alright.  I’ll make my way to you within the hour.”

After a quick series of goodbyes, but before he can even place the phone back on the cradle, the questions begin:

“They found the kids?” It’s Jun’s voice.

“One of the kids. He came back to town on his own.”

“Why haven’t they found the other one, then?”

“I don’t know.”

“But they were just lost?” Mingyu suggests.

“We don’t know anything yet,” Wonwoo answers, trying not to feed the optimism before he has more concrete answers.  There’s a reason the deacon called him. “I’m going to check up on things.  See what we can figure out.”

“Mingyu has to go with you,” Jun says quickly, “they have a witness now.”

“What exactly do you think I’m going to do?” Mingyu demands.

“You can see what happened.”

“How?”

“What do you mean how?”

“Sunglasses.”

They all turn at once to look at Joshua who is sitting backward in one of the kitchen chairs.  His head is resting on his folded arms and his eyes are closed but he repeats like he can feel them watching, “You could wear sunglasses.”

Wonwoo makes a mental note that he’s going to have to make sure Joshua actually makes it upstairs to a bed before he goes, or else he’ll probably fall asleep as is.

“Just to be clear,” Mingyu begins firmly, “our plan is that I’m going to walk into a house full strangers, pretend to be your assistant, and stand in a corner of the room _wearing sunglasses_ to try to follow this very specific event into the past.  And I’m not going to look suspicious?”

“You should wear gloves, too.”

Mingyu looks like he’s about to start stomping his feet, “It’s 90-something degrees out I’m not wearing gloves.”

“If you don’t want to do it that’s fine.  I’ll go alone.”

“No!” Mingyu’s entire disposition changes in an instant. “I want to go.”

Jun and Wonwoo exchange glances at the flip in Mingyu’s attitude, like he was desperate not to lose the invitation.

Jun sidesteps closer to him and bumps his shoulder in a friendly way but Mingyu shrugs off the gesture.

“I didn’t mean to make it sound like you had to,” Wonwoo apologizes, “obviously if you’re not comfortable—”

“No, I can do it.  I’m sorry, okay?”

“Why are you sorry?” Wonwoo questions.

Mingyu doesn’t appear to quite know himself, because he responds, “I want to bring Hoshi, though.”

“I think he’s with Woozi right now.”

“We can call him.”

“I think Woozi needs him,” Wonwoo reiterates subtly.

Mingyu seems to understand this at least and relents, “Okay.  I’ll do it on my own.  But we should get going, then.  You said we’d be there in an hour.”

“Sure,” Wonwoo agrees with reluctance that is matched in the expression on Jun’s face.  Before he goes, he jerks his head at Joshua half-asleep on the kitchen chair as a reminder and Jun nods. 

“We’ll be back,” he says then. 

“Good luck,” Jun answers.

“Don’t leave without me,” Mingyu calls back.  “I’m getting my shoes.”

Wonwoo wishes that he could read minds, because he could do to understand what Jun’s guilty expression is trying to tell him as his eyes slip over to Mingyu when the younger exits the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long chapter again! It kept adding pieces on me.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Careful readers may check end notes.

Wonwoo has been in the houses of many who are sick or dying, and the families are always like this: stationed around the ill like they’re painted to the background.  Yet there’s something different in the air here.  A tension he can’t quite name. 

He gestures Mingyu subtly to a dresser that appears sturdy enough and the younger sidesteps against it.  There are more than a half dozen people in the room looking solemn, and it’s clear that some are neighbors and some family.  Mingyu blends in well enough.  He just hopes the extra people won’t be cause for distraction when Mingyu sets to his task.

It’s unsettling to think of the dinosaur figurines and framed photos on the dresser.  So he chooses not to.  The pile of folded socks that had never been put away in the drawers signal the interruption of normalcy.

But Wonwoo is in his element now.  He doesn’t let himself get distracted. 

He steps forward.  He shakes the father’s hand.  No one says a word.

An elderly woman is praying the rosary in a chair right beside the bed, but when Wonwoo turns to look above the doorway he sees mistletoe laid over the threshold as a ward against faeries.  The mix of superstitions keeps the room unbalanced.

The deacon had greeted them at the door, and now he lends his authority to Wonwoo by gesturing him forward.  Wonwoo puts down the bag he brought at the foot of the child’s bed.

The boy tucked into the bed is no more than ten and only his head sticks up from under the covers, but it’s clear that he is unwell.  He is by first appearances awake, but there is no light or movement in him.  Purpled bruises under his eyes suggest he hasn’t slept.

Wonwoo introduces himself shortly and tries to avoid connecting to the empty look in the boy’s eyes.

The child doesn’t blink when Wonwoo passes his hand across his eyes.  With a heavy frown, Wonwoo puts a hand onto the child’s forehead.  Warm, but not enough to indicate a fever.

He settles into his work and filters through possibilities as he goes, aiming to eliminate the less likely answers.

Just to be sure, he moves the boy’s head to either side. There’s nothing in the way of marks on his neck.  He crosses out a possibility and moves on, thankful at least that he doesn’t have to deal with a child navigating blood thirst.  Part of his mind mulls over what he would do if that had been the case, though, as he takes the boy’s pulse.

He asks the deacon who is still hovering nearby, “What did the other doctor think?” He takes out a stethoscope and folds down the covers enough to use it.

“Exhaustion.  Shock. Seems to think he’ll recover in a few days with rest.”

He chooses not to respond as he pauses to listen to the boy’s heart and lungs.  Nothing unusual so far.  The boy’s empty expression seems to have little to do with his health.

“He’s been very much silent since he was recovered,” the deacon says lowly next to him.  The timbre of his voice leaves the air undisturbed.  Wonwoo matches it as he bounces back the idea,

“Shock and exhaustion can cause that, certainly.”

He’s hoping that he can find proof of something ordinary, but if he can’t accomplish that, he has to stall long enough for Mingyu to figure it out.

He takes a moment to glance over at Mingyu across the room.  No one else is paying any attention to him.  If they had been, they would likely be concerned by how hard he is gripping the edge of the dresser.  They might have been bothered at the way he doesn’t blink or move, mirroring the child in the bed.

Wonwoo brings his focus back to the boy.  Despite a lack of evidence, he can’t shake the knowledge that this is something preternatural.  He could do to have less people in the room.  He can make recommendations to help with sleep, but he supposes the doctor has already prescribed something in the way of medicine.  There are things he can't risk asking in the presence of strangers, though.  Especially strangers with superstition already in their thoughts.

He scans over for other injuries.  It probably wasn’t some kind of animal attack, supernatural or otherwise, since the boy doesn’t have a fever. 

He goes to move the covers again and freezes.

Nothing so far has been enough to suggest more than a night spent lost in the woods.  If it weren’t for the build up of strangeness earlier in the day, he might have let it go as an ordinary tragedy. 

But where the boy’s index finger should be is a stump. 

The whole hand is wrapped in white but the spot of the absent finger is slightly yellow. 

The deacon must pick up on what he’s noticed, because he leans across and goes, “The doctor had no explanation for that.”

Wonwoo reaches over and carefully unwraps the bandages.  He can feel adrenaline making his own hands unsteady.  The stump of the finger once revealed is jagged and horrifying.  The wound has clearly been cleaned and stitched by the other doctor but the bandages are brown with dried blood and it oozes a combination of white and yellow now.  The boy’s middle and ring finger have a few cuts across them like whatever had been used to cut off the index finger had slipped in its rushed work.

He's about to turn to the deacon when someone starts screaming.

The entire force of the room’s focus is shifted to the dresser.  Mingyu is crouched down beside it, his arms locked up on either side of his head.  He cuts off the scream in his throat as he cracks opens his eyes.  He seems to already know that everyone in the room is staring at him.

It takes everything in Wonwoo not to move.  He’s suddenly grateful for the mistletoe, because he’s confident Hoshi would have shown up if he’d been able to.

Mingyu meets eyes with Wonwoo, lost and alarmed.  Wonwoo swallows a rising wave of guilt because he can't say a word.

“Saw a spider,” Mingyu fumbles out as he pushes through the freezing of his whole body to stand.

Wonwoo wants to ask if he’s okay, but the pressure of eyes in the room keeps him silent.

“You are certainly my sister’s son,” the deacon says unexpectedly, “why don’t you go wait out at the car.  Get some fresh air.”

Wonwoo is thankful for the misdirection, though Mingyu looks nothing like the deacon.

Mingyu nods excessively at the excuse to leave, and takes it, making his way out alone and unbalanced.

The deacon continues to riff aloud to those gathered, solidifying the false story and releasing some of the shock and tension in the room.  Wonwoo would prefer to leave right then and there, but he knows that the separation from Mingyu buys him cover from at least some of the suspicion.

He returns to wrapping the bandages.  He tries to remain disconnected.

There is a shuffle and a whisper building from the corner of the room.  A woman is breaking into motion while another tries to stop her.  Finally one lines rises above the whispers, “No, who was he?” the woman demands.  It’s not a shout, but it cuts through the room.

The voice of another woman soothes back, but this only drives the first woman higher into hysterics.

“What was he doing here?  Why is no one looking for my son!”

He realizes that the spare people in the room are the family of the other boy and his heart drops into his stomach.

“Everyone is looking, Patricia.  Everyone wants to find him.”

“Then why won’t your son tell me where my son is!  What is he hiding!  Why won’t he just talk!”

He feels the deacon’s hand at his back and knows that he should be leaving now.  He finishes replacing the bandage.  He speaks for a moment only with the father.  He leaves well wishes.  All the while, the hysterics in the woman’s voice continue to rise.

He cringes as he hurries from the room.  Her words are met with more dismissals and correction although she’s right in her accusations chasing after them.  This is very much coming from their world.

. . .

Mingyu can still feel the dresser:  the rough edges under his hand.  It is sturdy and rooted to the ground. He imagines the earth the oak came out of, but the back of his mind twists in the dark.

He can still feel the memory if he closes his eyes:  fresh and overwhelming like inhaling straight into a container of coffee and every other sense is blinded by it.

He sees nothing, hears nothing, but there’s a knife in his hand.

And there’s the voice.  Haunting and inhuman drawing him in. 

“Are you alright?” Wonwoo interrupts his thoughts.

“Yes.”  He keeps his eyes closed.

“I shouldn’t have pushed you into this.”

“You didn’t.”

“Pretty sure I did.”

“Can you drop it, please?”

“No.”

Mingyu steels himself to get defensive when he opens his eyes, but Wonwoo lifts his eyebrows in a way that is inviting and unapologetic and it saps the energy from him.  He slides over and Wonwoo leans on the hood of the deacon’s car next to him. 

Wonwoo doesn’t ask.  And it’s the quiet, backtracked with the sound of locusts buzzing unseen, that draws out what he has learned, “He cut his own finger off.” 

“What?” he hears Wonwoo shuffle into a new stance that must feel sturdier.  He’s almost glad for how shocked he sounds. “What makes you say that?”

“It’s the only thing I saw.  Felt, actually.  It was like he didn’t see it either.”

“He might not want to remember. Especially if it’s that fresh.”

“Yeah,” he answers.  He wants to keep his own mind from committing the memory of dire panic and steel into permanence, but he’s having a hard time fighting it.

“Was there anything else?”

“No.”

He is aware, because he knows Wonwoo well now, that the older wants to question him further.  Wonwoo probably thinks there’s something that Mingyu himself is missing.  A hint from the memory that Wonwoo thinks he might be able to draw into a connection.  Mingyu isn’t even sure why they’re so invested in this.  None of them bothered to tell him.  His anger seethes in the darkness next to the residual memory of panic, but it’s a lifeless anger like the last glow of a fire dying into embers.

“He’s ten years old, Wonwoo.”

“I know.”

“I don't know why we have to go digging around in his head when there's nothing-”

“Yes, I know, Mingyu.  Trust me, I know.”  His voice almost snaps, but ends up sounding weary instead. 

Mingyu waits.  He waits for a long time and Wonwoo stares off at something only he can see at the horizon before he speaks again.  

“I had a son once.  A long while back. I mean a long, _long_ while back.”

“What happened to him?”

“What happens to all things:  he died.”

Wonwoo turns to see what Mingyu’s reaction is, and then looks back when he sees it’s thankfully neutral.  “I don’t want you looking into it,” he continues, “I made peace with it before they gave a name to gravity.  But it made me angry enough back then to want to hunt down anything I saw as less than human.  Which is ironic, really.”

“No, I get it,” he says, although he doesn’t.

“It wasn’t until. . .”  Wonwoo trails off, crosses his leg in front of the other, and scoffs at himself,  "My point is that I’m not heartless.  I know that’s a traumatized little boy in there.  But he’s not the only kid in danger.  Whether his friend is alive or not, there are others at risk if we don’t figure out what’s going on here.  He's a witness.  We're not going to let this end with more kids dying.” 

“Is that why we’re doing this?” Mingyu asks, and he hopes it's clear that he means _because you lost a kid._

“No,” Wonwoo says, although he isn’t sure.  “I’m doing this because Jun asked me to.”

Mingyu wonders how many others know what Wonwoo has told him.  He gets the feeling that maybe Jeonghan or S. Coups know, and he feels respected to be trusted with the information that he's certain just a few years back Wonwoo wouldn't have told him.

“There was something else,” Mingyu admits. 

“Yeah?” Wonwoo asks without urgency.

“There was a voice.  Like it was calling him.”

Wonwoo’s head snaps in his direction.  “Human?” He sounds like he hopes the answer is no.

“Not human.”

Action jumps into Wonwoo’s body.  "Thank you.  That gets us somewhere."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For careful readers: This is where the teen rating for a bit of medical goriness comes in. 
> 
> A/N: Augh, it's been ages. I finally just paced for an hour and went through scenes in my head. Turns out this one added backstory that didn't even exist before but it seems right even if it was no where in my plans. I have a couple little bits that were originally going to be in this chapter, too, that I'm not sure what to do with. They're just wrap up scenes from this very long day they've all been having i.e. touching base on Josh and Jun and Woozi and Hoshi mostly. Not sure if they'll be their own chapter or a tumblr side-post. The piece after that is written already, though! I just wanted to post SOMETHING because I was working all day on things. I hope everyone is doing well and I hope to post some more stuff soon!


	8. Chapter 8

When Jun senses the jack rabbit pace of a heartbeat racing out of control, he walks into the room expecting to find eyes wide with panic, heaving shoulders, gasped desperation. 

Instead, he finds a bundle hidden almost entirely underneath a nest of blankets.  He finds Joshua curled up on his side, staring across the room at the wall like he can’t see it, his teeth biting into the side of his thumb.

Jun hesitates as he crouches beside the bed.  His hand hovers uncertainly.  Joshua is shuddering so closely and slightly he wouldn’t know it if it wasn’t for the heat that practically radiates off of him like the panic is burning through him.

He allows one hand to rest on the comforter covering Joshua’s shoulder and asks the sideways face looking through him, “What’s wrong?”

Joshua doesn’t answer. 

“Josh, do you know where you are?”

The silence is an answer.  His hand kneads against the other’s shoulder, trying to shake the look out of his eyes.  He’s seen that look in Joshua’s eyes before and knows it’s St. Marks.  He drops his voice, “Joshua, you aren’t there anymore.”

Joshua’s eyes slide to meet his. “Jun?”

“Yeah, Josh, it’s me,” he confirms, trying a faint smile that pulls painfully as if it’s connected with string to his heart.

Joshua’s hands are unsettled as they squeeze against one another, his eyes rove around the room with confusion. “I think he’s coming back.”

“No,” Jun tries to soothe but he’s interrupted.

“Everyone's so upset. I don’t know what I did.”

“You didn’t do anything,” Jun says firmly.  “And if he tried to come within ten miles of this house I’d kill him.”  It frightens him how much he means it.  His voice shakes as he says it not with fear but rage.  He’s only killed once before and the thought of it makes him break into a cold sweat.  But he would kill the creature that hurt Joshua—flattened him into something thin and fragile and terrified of things he can’t remember.  He would do it without hesitation.

There’s a sound of footsteps in the downstairs hall.  

“Hey, we’re home!” 

It’s Hoshi calling up the stairs. 

A door slams and rattles through the house. 

Probably Woozi.

“I’m coming down in a sec,” Jun calls unsteadily toward the door so that Hoshi won’t pop upstairs to look for him.   For a brief and terrible second he had thought the footsteps were the demon of Joshua's foreboding. 

When Jun looks back to Joshua to tell him that it’s Hoshi, he’s confused to find that his eyes are closed. Joshua gives no sign that the shout or the slamming of the door has reached him at all.  His heart rate has evened out.  His face is undisturbed. 

Jun wishes he could feel the same.

He tries to remind himself that it's been a rough day and that Joshua's brain is probably scrambled and out of sync.  He tries to remind himself that Joshua hears voices and that he forgets and that he probably didn't realize what century it was.  But it bothers him and lingers when he leaves the room.

. . .

Hoshi is flopped over the back of the couch at a nearly impossible angle.  He rolls to look at Jun when he enters the room. “What a day,” he exhales with energy.

“Yeah,” Jun agrees, half distracted, “How did everything go?”  He doesn’t want to say _with Woozi_ in case the other is listening and brings holy hell down on his head later for talking about him behind his back.

“Fine, I guess. Where are the witch’s brew?  I can’t find them.”

Hoshi has always had a very particular sixth sense when it comes to Mingyu and Wonwoo, like he is more aware of them then the rest of the household.  It’s clear he hasn’t actually tried to look for them, he can just tell that they aren’t home. 

“One of the kids we were looking for found his way back home.  They went over to see what they could figure out.”

“Really?  I guess mystery solved,” Hoshi says with easy optimism. “Are you bored?”

Jun is caught off guard, “No?”

“Yeah, I mean no, me either.”

Jun debates going to sit down on the couch next to Hoshi like the imp wants him to and just turning on the television and huddling down until the others come home.  Hoshi would spend the entire time making fun of whatever events were going on and it would be familiar and good, but part of him knows the news will be on at this hour and he doesn’t want to see it.

“Hoshi, what do you know about angels?”

“Woah,” the other exclaims, falling from the back of the couch onto the seat, “no way, I want nothing to do with any of that. That’s none of my business.” But he sits upright immediately after and says, “Is Josh alright?” 

Jun shrugs and leans back against the wall.

“I can go hang out with him if he needs.” Hoshi looks a second away from disappearing before Jun says,

“That’s not—he’s asleep.”

“Oh,” Hoshi settles back down so that his head is on the arm rest, but he seems more alert and careful in his listening now.  “I’m not saying that I do know anything.  Because I don’t.  But if I did, what would your question be?”

Jun has about a thousand questions, but they've all lived together long enough that he knows none of them have the answers.  Instead he asks the one thing that Hoshi might know, "Down at the lake, why did the faeries say they didn't like him?"

"He freaks them out same as us," Hoshi answers honestly.

Jun tucks his hands under his arms to stop himself from biting at his nails. Hoshi suddenly adds, "That probably sounded really bad.  I didn't mean it in a bad way."

But Jun already knows that, and it helps him build up the guts to ask what he's never felt comfortable asking when Jeonghan was home.  “Do you ever get the sense that there’s more than one Joshua?  Like he's talking to you but it's not really him?”

Hoshi frowns and seems to genuinely mull it over.  “Yes, but there’s more than one you, too.  There’s the one that makes bad jokes and plays around with us and then there’s the one that shows up when you don’t eat and won’t talk.”

“That’s different.”

“Is it?”

There’s a certain wisdom in Hoshi’s world view every now and then that reminds Jun that for all he knows, Hoshi could be the oldest of all of them.  There’s something reassuring in that.  It's that feeling that draws out of him the actual question he'd been too afraid to ask.

“The house is safe, though, right?”

Hoshi sits up properly and seems exceptionally mindful when he reassures, “Yeah, of course it is.  You know Wonwoo.  He’s got this place protected six ways from Sunday.  I can’t even hop from inside the house to outside the house.  You don’t have to be worried about that.”

“I guess.”

“You worry a lot,” Hoshi points out without sounding rude.

And it’s weird to hear someone say it bluntly and Jun feels like yelling, _because he made me that way_ for no reason as if the day's events have anything to do with the person that turned him.  There’s no anger in it, though, just a deep kind of ache that had been sticking in his ribs since that morning:  since the deacon had dropped the suggestion that he could be involved, since he'd had to admit to Wonwoo why this mattered to him.  He hadn’t noticed the ache until now and it pricks at the corner of his eyes.

“Do you want to go play cards up in Josh’s room?”

The suggestion is so random but agreeable that Jun wonders if Hoshi knows where his thoughts had started to go.  He wonders suddenly why he’s never tried talking to Hoshi about it before.

“Yeah, but if we’re playing pounce we’ll need both decks.”

“If we play pounce we’ll wake up Josh,” Hoshi laughs.

“Then he can join us,” Jun says back and the rightness of the whole thing in the afternoon light loosens the tightness in his chest.  He and Hoshi would just play cards in Joshua’s room.  They would be nearby and things would be good and in control.   Neither of them would have to worry about the demons that haunt them.

He needs something uncomplicated and good today.  If he tries to think anymore about missing kids or gap-filled memories or the cause of Joshua's strangeness or his own past winding up in the back of his mind like a snake he would lose it.

Out of nowhere as they turn to go, Hoshi crashes into his back in what's probably meant to be a hug.

It fires through him in a jolt of panic.

He has to catch and smooth out the short breaths that automatically start to piston in his lungs. And he manages it.  Because it's Hoshi and he's safe and he's gotten good at this.  But he has to force his body to let go of the tension that had frozen him to the spot. In the process, the sense of control he's held together with straws and rubber bands since the start of the day collapses.  He fights it, but the uneven breaths dissolve and nothing is fair and then he's crying and he's too overrun to find the power to hide it. 

Hoshi turns him around to face him and when he starts to sink down to the floor Hoshi sinks down with him, wrapping him into a real hug.

"That's okay," Hoshi sympathizes, like he really does understand. "That's okay.  It's a bad day."

And it's such a stupid thing because it's not just a bad day, it's so much more than that.  It's so many bad days and the way everything reminds him that time doesn't heal all wounds.  But all the tension and despair rises and melts off of him because Hoshi calls it a bad day and makes it manageable.

It ends some time later into a weird sense of relief and quiet.

Hoshi hasn't even let go of the hug yet when he asks, "Do you still want to play pounce?"

"Yeah, you idiot," Jun manages, which almost gets them laughing but not quite, and there's a kind of relief in that as well, like they don't have to laugh it off.  And Hoshi taps him on the arm to encourage him to stand, and they both head up the stairs with enough light left in the day to play a couple of hands before the others are likely to return.

. . .

Woozi is sitting in the dark in the library with only the green shaded desk lamp to add dimension to the space.  He has been there for hours, long after he and Hoshi first arrived home.

Wonwoo waits in the doorway. 

“Don’t ask me about it,” Woozi says.

“Sure,” Wonwoo agrees, “but—"

“What did I just say?” he explodes.

“I was just going to ask if you were hungry.”

Woozi glances over twice before he realizes that he’s been caught in his overreaction—any attempts at being aloof shattered.  He sighs, collapsing forward onto his arms and burying his head.  “Go away.”

“No.”

“I mean it.”

“You keep talking to me like that and the oven mitt is coming off, Woozi. You better prepare yourself.”

Woozi turns his head to the side so that Wonwoo can see he is rolling his eyes. 

Wonwoo grins in that way that rests below his eyes like he’s trying not to disturb his image of the other.  Woozi appreciates that Wonwoo has been running around all day being everyone's keeper and trying to solve six problems at once, but he resents that he's trying the same thing on him now.

“I can’t stand you sometimes," he says, but not without a note of admiration.

“I hate you, too. Now get yourself out there before Mingyu goes back for seconds.”

“I’m really not in the mood.”

“Okay,” Wonwoo accepts easily, “you want to help me solve this mystery, then?”

“No,” Woozi dismisses, aware of what Wonwoo is doing, “you should eat.”

“I did, and it’ll keep on the stove.”

Wonwoo is already making a bee-line for the book shelves.  There’s no stopping him once he gets his elbows into research, so Woozi doesn't try.  "What are we looking for?” he asks and shifts so he’s sitting more upright in the chair. 

“Local.  I was thinking something spirit based at first but could be related to the water.”

Wonwoo tosses a book at him and Woozi catches it between his hands.  He spins it around to look at the title while adding, “The faeries were pretty quiet on the topic of the lake.  I think that’s a pretty good sign that we should keep our focus there.”

He has to wait for a response as Wonwoo moves to a low shelf stuffed with his old leather-bound notebooks.  Some of the pages are crumbling at the edges.  He chooses one, flips it open, and shuts it again, finally choosing one toward the end of the row.  He’s already reading from the first pages when he stands.  

“There’s something to do with a voice,” he says like he’s talking to himself, “Mingyu said the kids were drawn in by a voice.”

Woozi watches Wonwoo pace in a wide circle.  He waits for the opportunity to say, “That’s a siren, then.  Isn’t it? You don’t need a book to tell you that.” 

The way Wonwoo twists his mouth indicates that he’s heard although he doesn’t look up until he’s finished the page.  He dismisses the idea like he’d already thought of it. “That’s Greek, though.” 

Woozi shrugs to himself and cracks open the book in his lap.  “Alright, well, I’m starting with mermaids.”

“If you find anything about losing limbs or fingers let me know.”

“That’s oddly specific,” Woozi comments without lifting his eyes from the table of contents.  “Care to share?”

“You know they found one of the kids, right?"

"I heard."

"The boy that wound up back home:  he cut his own finger off.”

Woozi doesn’t seem the least bit bothered or shocked by this, which Wonwoo finds unsettling.  Instead he jokes, “I’m definitely starting with mermaids, then.  They’re creepy bastards.  Never liked them.”

. . .

 At the same time, in the darkness upstairs, Mingyu knocks on the door frame of Joshua's room and leans his ear toward the door before he pushes it open.  “Hey, Josh?”

When he peers inside, it’s almost too dark to see if Joshua is even somewhere under the heap of blankets on his bed.  Instead, a sound issues half-asleep from the pile, “Hm?”

“Um, there’s some food downstairs if you want anything.”

The sleepy, “Ok,” that answers back doesn’t sound promising, like Joshua is already drifting back to sleep.

Mingyu is wiped himself and is probably going to fall asleep on contact with his bed, but he hesitates, thinking he should offer again.

"You sure?"

Joshua doesn't answer this time, and so he moves to shut the door the way he’d found it.

“You should close the window.”

In his confusion, Mingyu has to stop and double check before he says, “It is closed.”  Joshua's room is stifling and he can't imagine how he's managed to sleep under the mountain of blankets he's got on the bed with the window closed.

But Joshua doesn’t say anything more.

Mingyu closes the door, and decides not to dwell on it as he thumps lightly from the darkness into the glow from downstairs.

It might be the heat, but the whole house feels sleepy and close.  He's hoping he's tired enough tonight to skip the displeasure of dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so all of those smaller wrap up pieces that I thought were going on tumblr ended up here instead. I just couldn't expand the research scene with Woozi and Wonwoo enough to make it a full chapter and I felt we needed a couple of beats to just process before moving on to the second act. 
> 
> There are a lot of things happening in this story and if I were a writer with better control I'd cut out all of the parts that don't have to do with the current mystery. But I'm a half-told story writer instead and so here's a billion different small things happening all at the same time some of which are relevant immediately and some of which aren't lol.


	9. Chapter 9

There is silence at the shore.

The wind is a rush of darkness in the trees. 

The air off the water is damp.  The night absent of stars.

The crushing humidity sustains the air except when the wind rises quick and cool off the field.

And the lake is still.  It stretches black and endless toward the circle of trees like spears out of the ancient ground.

His feet drag him on.

Two steps.

Three.

When hands plant themselves against his shoulders, they strive to hold him, heels digging into the grass.

“Mingyu, _stop.”_

Ten steps.  Eleven.

Hoshi leans forward into the effort but he slides on the dew-covered grass.  He looks up at the vacant eyes that hold the lake in unseen focus. 

Mingyu pushes to thirteen steps.

Hoshi grabs for him again and is shrugged aside.

“Mingyu!”

The lake edge is a ribbon of dark light on the shore and Mingyu draws closer to it.

Indecision pulls the life out of Hoshi’s limbs.  He stands ten feet back and almost gets dragged into the wind like an exhale.  Then he vanishes and reappears blocking Mingyu’s path.  Hoshi is not solid enough to stop him.  

With a desperate sound of frustration and urgency Hoshi vanishes again.

The crunch of Mingyu’s feet hitting gravel is distinct.  There is a broad emptiness in the smell of the air. 

The lake ripples as he steps in.  The water engulfs his ankles.  He remains unblinking and still for eons. 

Only when the voice of the wind softens and disappears does he step again, drawing into the water.

Thoughtless.  Dark.

There is running and crashing into the lake.  Stronger arms grab him from behind.

“Mingyu, stop it!

The voices are a cacophony of orders.  He fights back.

“Mingyu!”  Hands try to cover his ears.  He shakes his head.  He pushes forward.  The water is splashing high in the struggle.  He stumbles and a hand plunges underwater to stop himself from falling.  He’s grabbed back, off balance.  The voice close by his ear is sharp and urgent: “Mingyu there’s _nothing out there_.”

The words settle in his head and he is finally able to see that Hoshi is standing in front of him knee deep in the water.  He has his arms out.  There is water in his hair.  His eyes are wide open and he’s crouched down like he’s ready to tackle him if he needs to. 

But the voice is behind him. 

He can feel himself breathe again. His shoulders are moving with the heaviness of his breath and his gaze is pulled to the trees stenciled into the sky.

“Gods and holidays, Mingyu,” the familiar voice is uncomfortably close.

The thought of where he’s standing starts to settle and the weight of it is overwhelming.  Tension creeps into his spine.  The arm that is currently wrapped across him jerks him backward a little like a check, and he slides his foot back to steady himself.  The water sloshes and it occurs to him his legs feel numb.  His hand is cold.

“I’m good,” he rasps, then clears his throat.  “I’m good.”

“I know,” Wonwoo says, and it’s calming before the urgency of his question, “What were you doing?”

Mingyu doesn’t answer because he can’t.  He has no idea.

He is led out of the water, but his body feels like lead.  It only occurs to him when the coolness of the grass touches his feet that he isn’t wearing shoes.

As they wait there a moment, the soaked legs of his jeans feel like weights holding him to the spot.  He recalls faintly, “There was the voice."

“There was no voice, Mingyu,” Wonwoo says with patient certainty, “If there was we would have heard it, too.”

The thought knits itself deep and twisting under his heart where it becomes fixed:  a doubt that grows into a tree inside of him.

Hoshi is standing still at the edge of the water, his back straight.  He watches across the eye of the lake and says conclusively under his breath, “There is something out there, though.” 

“Hoshi, come on.”

He turns and Wonwoo holds out a free arm in invitation.  Hoshi joins them as they leave.  The lake stays still and black and patient.

. . .

Mingyu suppresses a shiver as the wind kicks up again, and watches after Wonwoo who is giving instructions to Hoshi some ways off.  Back on the road now, there's something ominous about the way the street lights deepen the shadows.  Their light is pale and sickly green.  He can’t help but glance at the patches of darkness.  At one points he swears he can see a shape move in the night, but he blinks and it’s gone.

In the corner of his eye, Hoshi vanishes and Wonwoo makes his way back over. 

“He’s making sure the others know you’re not drowned at the bottom of Loch Each,” Wonwoo explains although it hadn’t occurred to Mingyu to ask. 

There’s a lightness in Wonwoo's words which make Mingyu feel fairly secure in where they’re standing, but he wonders what it must be like at the house with everyone else waiting for news.

“When did you figure out I was gone?”  There are other questions in his mind, including how they knew where to find him and how they got there in time, but he figures it’s better to ask one and wait. He's having trouble pulling his mouth closed over his teeth, a crooked, nervous smile a constantly developing threat.

“Hoshi woke me up,” Wonwoo begins, and he indicates that they should start walking again. 

Mingyu is thankful for the pavement.  It's a luxury after navigating over sticks and pine cones on the trail from the lake.  Part of him wishes he’d thought to ask Hoshi to bring him back shoes. 

“He didn’t see you leave but you weren’t home and we didn’t know where to find you.”

He feels a sliver of guilt at the image of them waking in the dead of night to look for him, but he’s pretty sure that this has everything to do with the weirdness they’d gotten him into that afternoon, and so the guilt doesn't last.

“You have good timing,” he tries to joke, but his exhaled laugh is covered with the uncomfortable pulling of his mouth in and out of a smile.  He darts his attention to the tree line again.  There's nothing, but the air is charged.

“Woozi mentioned the lake.” Wonwoo is focused on the road ahead while they talk and Mingyu can’t read the expression he refuses to show.  “Hoshi checked almost every point on the road until he crossed paths with you.  Fortunately you weren’t in a rush.”

Mingyu stops dead.  This time he's heard something. 

Without a word Wonwoo picks up on his hesitation and his gaze sweeps through the tree line.  "Where?"

"Nothing," he says with forced confidence, starting to walk again.  Wonwoo trails a bit behind, still alert.   

When headlights come bouncing toward them down the road, Wonwoo moves to the outside and wordlessly maneuvers Mingyu off the road with his shoulder.  Wonwoo’s demeanor becomes more cold and rigid like he can stave off attention with the force of his aura.  But the car begins to slow and he relaxes as it pulls over beside them.  

Jeonghan has the door open before they even fully stop.  S. Coups leans across his now empty seat.  “Need a ride?”

Wonwoo would be lying if he claimed he didn’t feel an instant sense of relief.

“You came home early,” he quips.

Jeonghan has pulled a blanket from the back of the car and tried to throw it over Mingyu’s shoulders with equal parts annoyance and care.  Mingyu’s half whined response is reassuring.  “Of course we did,” Jeonghan says, fussing over getting the blanket to settle right on Mingyu’s shoulders as the taller cringes away, “you made it pretty hard not to.”

Wonwoo had hoped that they would be far enough away that Jeonghan’s intuitions wouldn’t kick in over their exploits. 

“Oh, you thought that scrying from inside the house, disturbing the fair folk, and losing track of Mingyu _and_ Joshua wouldn’t get my attention?”

At this point, S. Coups has gotten out of the car as well.  Mingyu seems much more amenable to S. Coups tossing a casual arm around him than he was with Jeonghan.  He even plays up pitifully,

“Yeah, Wonwoo, how could you?”

Before Wonwoo’s aggravation develops fully, S. Coups interrupts, “Let's just get in the car.  You can fill us in on the whole business of whatever is going on here while we're on the way home.”

S. Coups gives him a look directly, and he can tell he’s in some kind of trouble even if the glance is amenable enough.

When they’re all stuffed into the car, rumbling down the road, Mingyu doesn't waste time recounting his version of the story.  S. Coups is very attentive and reactive but Wonwoo sees Jeonghan’s eyes on him through the rear-view mirror.  _If you’ve got something to say might as well say it now,_ he thinks.

 _I know you,_ Jeonghan replies _,  You’ve already had the whole argument in your head.  I can’t say anything you haven’t already thought of._

_If I hadn’t gone along with all of this, you know Jun would have done it on his own._

_He wouldn’t have._

Wonwoo looks out at the darkness.  It eats at him.  And the feeling grumbles and festers until Jeonghan continues,

_I know you were doing what you thought was right, Wonwoo, but when you make decisions that put the entire house at risk, I have a right to—_

_I didn’t put the household at risk.  Children were missing.  We looked into it.  That's all._

He breaks from the conversation when the back of Mingyu’s hand connects with his arm. 

“What?”

“Tell S. Coups about the phone call.”

He gets pulled into the storytelling for a bit.  When Mingyu takes over he looks for Jeonghan’s eyes in the rear-view again.

He can almost feel Jeonghan’s sigh echo in him.  _I came home because I figured you might need the help, not to blame anyone._

He scoffs and it is very much audible.

“What?” Mingyu wonders with a hint of a complaint, as if the sounds was directed at him.

“Nothing.” Wonwoo mumbles.

S. Coups’s eyes go to Jeonghan and his lingering silence in the seat next to him.

Before long, Wonwoo hears Jeonghan’s voice in the back of his head again, but it’s quieter this time.  _I lied.  I came home because each and every one of you terrifies me._

And Wonwoo starts to feel it, because he and Jeonghan know each other very well by now.  And he had thought through the whole argument like Jeonghan had said.  He had already juggled the blame and justification over every decision he'd made that day and he was above a lecture from an old friend.  And Jeonghan knew that, because this wasn't a lecture.

_I mean absolutely terrify me, Wonwoo.  We all have reasons for the choices we make.  I don't blame you for yours.  I'm sure you wouldn't agree with all of mine.  
_

Wonwoo wonders why this feels like a confession, but not enough to overlook the olive branch. 

"Thanks for the ride."

He leaves it at that, and leans his head against the window.  He doesn't look for Jeonghan's expression in the mirror, and he doesn't listen for S. Coups's answer, but he's known them long enough to know exactly the look they would have just given each other over his words.  It's enough comfort for the ride home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N 
> 
> Double double, toil and trouble! 
> 
> I know it doesn't feel like it yet, but there are only 3? chapters left in this story. I've also been writing and re-writing the next chapter of witch at the well for months now and I can't get it quite right, but that's up in the next round assuming I can ever make peace with it, haha.
> 
> Also wow, what a writing whiplash with Jeonghan. Very different versions of him between Chartes and here!


	10. Chapter 10

Before he turns, he knows that Jeonghan is leaning against the window with his arms crossed, watching him like he can read his mind.  He can’t, though.  Not today. Wonwoo has made sure of that.

“Betony,” Jeonghan mentions astutely, pointing to his forehead at the same spot Wonwoo had drawn the oil under his bangs earlier that morning, “nice trick.”

“I’m heading out.”

“I’m not here to stop you.”

Neither of them moves.  The silence and isolation leave too much space in the hall especially with how brightly the house is lit by the morning.

“I’m going alone, so you don’t have to worry about it.”

“I’m not worried.”

Wonwoo is vexed with his inability to read Jeonghan.  He’s sure Jeonghan is equally frustrated that he can’t touch on his thoughts.  His hand is on the door handle but he can’t open it, sensing that they have more to say to each other.  Jeonghan wouldn’t have stuck around otherwise. 

He’s proven right when Jeonghan asks, “What are you hoping for at this point?”

“Nothing. I’m doing this for my sake. Call it curiosity.”

“You heard Josh last night.  You aren’t going to find that other kid. It’s done.”

“Maybe it is. But I said I’d help.”

“For your sake, huh?” 

“It’s killing you that you can’t read what I’m thinking isn’t it?”

“Oh trust me, I don’t need to read your mind to know what you’re thinking.”

“So you admit it, you read our minds.”

“I read whatever I want to.”

Wonwoo tilts into a laugh at the ludicrous intensity of the declaration causing Jeonghan to break into a disarming smile. It doesn’t stitch the tear between them, but Jeonghan slides over and grips both of his arms in a show of acceptance.   And standing in front of him as he is, he says, “I heard it’s going to rain today.”

Wonwoo thinks that if it would break the heatwave he’d be glad for it, but he only nods.  Then Jeonghan leaves him in the hall.

Part of him wishes that he’d tried to continue the conversation, but maybe it’s for the best that they don’t risk the disagreement.  By now Wonwoo has decided he’s upset with Jeonghan because he’s right, anyway.  And because on any other day, Wonwoo would be the one discouraging interference with human affairs.  Today, though, he has things to do.

. . .

The influence of a blue sky and passing clouds has lulled the town into a tentative peace.  Wonwoo’s ultimate destination leads him through the mostly empty streets, and his thoughts get wrapped up in the empty hum of heat and inactivity.  He doesn’t like loose ends.  Doesn’t like the sense that things are settling before the answers are found.   There's too much to think about.  Too many factors that it had taken sitting up all night for him to finally see threads of connection.

“Excuse me.”

A man is standing just outside the door of a shop.  At first, Wonwoo isn’t even sure he had called to him.

“Yes?”

The man is standing on the steps above street level but comes down one step as he says, “You were at the Mason’s house yesterday.  The doctor.”

He nods casually, but his foot is already angled away, ready to walk off.  “I was.”

“How’s your friend?”

The question feels designed, and the man is wearing an apron like he’d run out to catch him in the middle of his work. 

“He’s got a weak stomach,” Wonwoo answers.  To try to continue the lie the deacon had spun feels useless with the man’s quick eyes taking him apart piece by piece.  “But he’ll be fine.”

“I remember you,” the man says, taking another step down, closer to street level, “you were over my house last summer.  You helped with my dog.”

Wonwoo, admittedly, doesn’t remember that very well, but he doesn’t doubt that it’s true.  He isn’t sure how to respond.  The man from the shop doesn’t make him struggle for long.

“You live at that house at the bottom of the hill, right?  I’ve talked about it with some folks.  Seems that your family has owned the place for a while.  At least that’s the impression that people have.”

“Yes.”

The man finally makes it down to street level, but he doesn’t move closer.  His eyes are intense.  “That’s the thing, though.  No one remembers going to school with you.  No one knows your parents.  No one’s even quite clear how many people live in that house.” 

“I wasn’t aware it was our responsibility to write up yearly bulletins about our private lives in this town,” Wonwoo counters, struggling not to sound angered.  He doesn't want to fuel any fires that might already be burning inside the walls of the town or under the floorboards.

“Some people have been saying they don’t like it,” the man says with an intensity that pricks at the back of Wonwoo’s neck. “They think it’s strange.  You keep to yourselves and then make a big showing at a time like this.”

“I was invited over by the deacon. If you have an issue with that you can take it up with him.”

The man’s mouth sticks open, halfway through a word. 

At first, Wonwoo throws a glance over his shoulder, assuming some distraction must have appeared, but when he looks back the man hasn’t moved an inch.  His mouth seems to be hinting now at a smile.

A creeping feeling of wrongness crawls up Wonwoo’s spine, and he gets the distinct feeling of eyes boring into his neck.  His gaze bounces around the street.  He spins in a circle and just catches the back of a figure walking away in the suspended heat.

He follows.

Sometimes all he sees is the tail of a coat or the momentary shine of a shoe as the figure disappears around the corner.  At first, he maintains his distance, waiting for a sign of which direction to turn and trudging after, but then the figure becomes harder to spot.  Wonwoo begins to jog between points, trying to look nonchalant.  One time he comes around the corner and sees nothing.  He increases his pace, checking down each side alley and around each dumpster as he moves and finally catches the back of the figure retreating away, hat brim low.

“Excuse me!”

To his surprise the figure stops.

Wonwoo slows down and almost trips on his shoes when he recognizes the face watching and waiting for him. It’s something in the roll of the cheek bone.  Or the angle of the jaw.  The hint of recognition is so strong yet distant.

“Dino?”

“You got me,” he says with a casual air.

“I didn’t recognize you.”  The apology pop out of him automatically, and he sinks into deeper unease when he’s not sure why he thought he would recognize him, or why he had known his name.

“If you keep getting yourself into trouble like you did back there, I’m not going to be able to help you,” his words flow in easy conversation, like he assumes Wonwoo will understand, “I’m not always around to cover for you.”

The cryptic words don’t settle.  They dust along the ground.  Wonwoo can’t place exactly where he knows Dino from, but he _knows_ him.  Knows him like an old friend.  Knows him like a book he’s read a thousand times then put aside for years.  Knows him like the smell of pine and ginger.

Dino’s focus is leveled calmly at him, and he recognizes the stare, framed by the swooping of his eyelids and it spreads into a general malaise. 

“We don’t meet much like we used to, do we?” Dino notes, “you’ve been keeping a quiet life. I’ll assume that’s a good thing.”

The day is so clear and bright and Dino is sketched into it in full detail where he should seem out of place—his clothes of another time.  There’s something old and yet young about him.

“Why don’t I remember how I know you?”

Dino shrugs and answers, “Everyone seems to forget me—until the time comes.”

The gravitas Wonwoo expects from the other isn’t there.  There’s something easy and boyish about the way he speaks, but his eyes still make the back of his neck prick.

“You were at the lake,” Wonwoo realizes, feeling that itch of unease all along his spine, “I saw you.”

“Was I?” he asks like he’s amused.

“Yes." And he's never been more certain in a time where he has never been more confused, "Why?”

“Well, in addition to having the lucky opportunity to cover for you again, I wanted to stick around and be sure I wasn’t making any returns.  You know how it goes with Joshua.”

This causes Wonwoo to tilt his head to the side, like he can pool all of his thoughts together and maybe get something to stick.  The confusion must leak into his expression because Dino clarifies,

“Or maybe you don’t know yet.  It’s hard to keep track of time your way, as if everything hasn’t already happened and is happening and will happen.”

The phrase triggers something in Wonwoo.  A memory of him and Seungcheol standing in a forest covered with mist in the dark of night, looking at a body that had been left by some creature still unknown to them.  Tracking.  Studying. Hunting. And Dino is there.  Although it is hundreds of years ago, they talk like old friends.  Dino explains about time, and about souls, and he and S. Coups listen and bounce back their thoughts.

“You’re a reaper.”

“I like it better the times you decide I’m Death,” Dino seems to joke, “but sure.”

“The other boy is dead, then,” he understands all at once, “You were there at the lake for him.”

“No. I’d collected him the previous night,” Dino says, “I was there at the lake to be sure I didn’t have to give him back.”

The words disturb Wonwoo because the implication is too immense to accept.

“You should come to the house,” Wonwoo says suddenly, without thinking, as if a distant version of himself wanted it.  He can’t override the feeling that Dino must be lonely.  “Seungcheol would be happy to see you, and the rest of the guys. . .”

“We’ve met,” Dino assures, “if not yet then soon.”

“You used to stay sometimes back then,” Wonwoo remembers more as he speaks, “with me and Seungcheol.”

“My appointments weren’t as demanding.  And plus, you were more aware of me then.  Hard to invite someone in who you don’t remember.”

“We’re not supposed to remember, are we?” Wonwoo puts it together. 

“People only think of me when I’m near at hand,” Dino agrees, “It’s a trick of the trade.”

It’s so long ago, that Wonwoo can almost feel years flutter by in rapid succession as he tries to pull the memory back.  He has no recollection of Dino being there beyond that one scene and the impression that yes, he had stuck around for a while.

“How have you been?” he is compelled to say, as if to bridge the distance his confusion creates.  He is certain that if he stops talking—stops asking questions—that Dino will leave.  And if he leaves he’ll forget.

“That’s nice of you to ask,” Dino remarks but doesn’t answer.

An ache like a lump of cloth presses in his throat and he wants to remember enough to make a connection with the face that is so familiar.  There's also a strange terror at the thought that whole pieces of his life could be missing:  times when Dino was there that he isn't meant to recall.

“There’s something that bothered me, actually,” Dino says out of the blue, his gaze constant and unchanging, “When you met me the first time, your son had just died. You waited a long time to ask me what really happened. Why?”

“I thought I—,” he’s caught off guard by how loud he can hear his heart beating and when he hears it he's set off balance and faint.  It was so long ago that any thought of that time feels like conversations with ghosts.  He can’t picture his face in any clarity anymore.  What he says in the end surprises himself, “I realized that I was wrong.  I met someone and I realized I was wrong.” 

“Ah,” Dino says knowingly, “then good.  The less we meet the better, right?”  There’s something wise and final about the words, and Wonwoo understands that Dino intends to leave.

It strikes him as unfair, though.  If he could think of a memory strong enough to justify the impulse he would grab him and stop him from leaving and insist that he stay.  But he's aware that his authority is nothing here and that Dino must have places to be.

He snaps like a rubber band out of the cloud of forgotten recollections when it hits him that Dino wouldn’t show up without reason.

“Wait."  He stops Dino as he turns, “why are you here now?”

Dino levels his gaze at him and doesn’t say a word.  He appears like darkness and a hollow in his stillness.  But Wonwoo knows enough to understand.  Then, like a favor, Dino lets his gaze slide over toward the sky.  Wonwoo follows it and sees the steeple of the church.

His heart sinks into his shoes.  “Oh. . .”

Dino nods and turns.  “I have an appointment to keep.  Don’t look for me. I’ll find you when the time comes.  I promise.”

When he starts to leave, a panic lights in Wonwoo.  He fumbles around in his pockets, trying to find his pen.  By the time he gets it out, Dino has almost disappeared around the corner.  He shakes the pen and draws it over the side of his hand. 

. . .

Wonwoo stands in a back alley behind a local bar.  He watches the mist escape from an exhaust pipe.  His gaze drags down to a pool of suspect liquid near a dumpster.  He can’t quite remember why he’d come around this way.

Then as if his eyes are pulled, he looks above the buildings toward the steeple of St. Mary’s and a drop of adrenaline slides down his throat.  That was where he’d been going.  He has already lost time.

As he moves, he realizes his pen is in his hand.  He frowns, and shoves it back in his pocket.  He takes off toward the church, feeling like he’s racing with something.  An insistent, unfounded voice in his mind taunting that if he doesn’t get there in time, the deacon will be dead.  He flies down the roads, throwing a spare apology at strangers he knocks into or barely avoids. 

When he gets across the church green he pounds on the door of the rectory.  “Deacon!”

He tries the door but it’s locked.

“Deacon!” 

He spins, realizing that if anyone is watching he’s going to look like a madman.  He moves up closer to the door and knocks louder.  He pulls on the door handle and pushes against it with his shoulder. “Deacon!”

“Yes?”

He spins around to see the deacon standing in the grass a few yards behind him.  He exhales shakily and slides down the door until he’s sitting on the ground, panting in the summer heat.  “I thought. . .”

“I was on call to give last rights to a parishioner I’ve had the pleasure to know for many years.  You’ll forgive me for that, I hope.”

“I’m sorry,” he exhales, still trying to catch his breath from his sprint across town.  “I just. . .” 

“It was a peaceful passing,” the deacon remarks, “I’m glad you’re here, though.  We didn’t get a chance to talk after what happened the other day.”

Wonwoo lets the deacon offer him a hand up.

Before he releases his grip, though, the deacon says quietly, “You may wish to be more mindful of your urgency on a Sunday morning in so public a space.” He looks over his glasses from the corner of his eyes to drive home his point.

Wonwoo can only nod, out of breath and strangely relieved.

“Let’s go inside, shall we?”

Wonwoo follows the balding man into the rectory.  He watches him place the items he’d carried back into their rightful spots.  And it strikes him again that the deacon has been very calm about all of the strangeness that the past few days has brought by his door.

When Wonwoo had come to the parish door seven years ago and crowded into this same office and sat down opposite the deacon in the dim light and laid out all of his subtle threats, the deacon had not been surprised.  He did not reject the story when Wonwoo told him the truth of what they were.  And he was not the least bit alarmed.  Not as he should have been.

“You know what it is that’s out there, don’t you?” Wonwoo starts.  The idea has been developing in his mind for two days now. “There’s something at the lake.”

“Yes.”

“It took those boys.”

“And one escaped,” the deacon points out, “by cutting off a finger before he could be dragged under and drowned as well.” 

“What’s out there?”  Wonwoo asks.

“I suppose you already have it narrowed down yourself,” the deacon counters as he eases himself down into his desk chair. 

“Some kind of mercreature,” Wonwoo proposes, “or a banshee.”

“That second one would have been my guess if I hadn’t seen it myself some 40 years ago.”

Wonwoo has gone past feeling surprised.  His desperation to understand the answers drives him on. “What is it?”

“Something you won’t likely know of if you’re not from the area. Are any of you from the area? Or are you all transplants from elsewhere?”

Wonwoo is having too long of a weekend to be amused by the deacon’s failure to get to the point.  

“Another day, then,” the deacon decides when his questions are not answered, and Wonwoo wishes that the man wasn’t so even tempered, because it would feel good to give him a piece of his mind.  He only manages a slight grumble in his throat when he accuses, “If you knew all along, you could have told us what we were looking for and saved some trouble.”

“By the time anyone knew those boys were missing it was too late.”

“Why call us at all? Why call _me_?”

“Part of me, I suppose, was hoping you may have an interest in taking care of the problem.”

It takes him a moment to understand the suggestion.  The sinister idea that he would have been able to eliminate the threat sits uncomfortably between them. “That’s why you wanted me to come and look at the boy.  You wanted to make me angry.”

“I thought your sympathies might tend the same way as mine.”

“We don’t do that,” he says, almost forgetting to leave off the _anymore_.  “I’m not an executioner.  I don’t pass judgment. I’m a doctor.”

“In your wisdom I hoped you may know better than me what the right thing to do is.  It plays on my conscience to let children die.”

A rage boils inside of Wonwoo and sharpens the corners of his eyes.  “You have no right to say that to me.”

“I don’t mean that to sound like a judgment on you,” the deacon pacifies and there’s a softness at his brow that suggests his honesty, “I simply thought you and I may share a common sensibility.  When you came to my door and asked for my help years ago, you did so despite the fact that you very obviously did not want anything to do with my world.  You came here because you thought I had the tools to help your friend.  I only did the same in coming to you over this.”

He tries not to notice something of a kindred spirit in the deacon, but it’s a weak struggle. “The creature at the lake,” he demands outright, “What is it?”

“A dark horse.  A kelpie.  They take on human form but their ultimate goal is to drown anything they can entice to the water’s edge.”

Wonwoo hadn’t seen any reference to a kelpie in his books.  There was something Woozi had pointed out that seemed similar.  It was Scandinavian, though.  Not local.

“What you do with that information is up to you,” the deacon continues.  He reaches into a felt lined drawer of his desk and takes out something on a cord. “Take this.” He offers forth the silver coin that the cord is attached to.  “Back in the old days of my family, my grandfather gave this to me when I was insisting despite all other logic that my sister and I had been attacked by some impossible creature.  He said it was made of an old kelpie bridle and that it would serve to keep me safe.  I’m sure it was just a story.  But of course, we know better.”

Wonwoo, feeling weighted down by the conversation, takes the coin and keeps it in his hand.  He manages a thank you he’s not sure he means.

The deacon’s phone rings between them. 

Wonwoo wonders if he should leave as the deacon excuses himself to answer, but his curiosity makes him pause.  He watches the deacon’s face twist in surprised expressions as he listens to the voice on the other line.  He sees Wonwoo watching and holds up a finger to ask him to wait. 

“I’m sorry,” the deacon says into the phone, “can you repeat that, please?”

Wonwoo plants his feet.  He suspects his day is far from over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok. so. . . I'm anticipating I have made more questions then answers lol.
> 
> This should at least explain what the heck was going on in chapter 4 at the lake. More answers to come in the closing two chapters~


	11. Chapter 11

This late at night he is not expecting them all to be gathered in one place.  He brushes the rain off of his shoulders, realizing he’s forgotten to remove his shoes.  Part of him wonders if they were all waiting up for him in the quiet lamplight of the living room.

No one has looked up or noticed him yet.  In the window seat alone, Jun is staring out at the rain that’s coming down harder now.  Wonwoo has just missed the worst of it.  Hoshi is sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of Mingyu, teaching him how to tie the ends of corn husk figures.  Wonwoo can’t decide whether it’s a little sinister or not but he takes a moment to appreciate that everyone’s together so he only has to say this once.

“They found him.  They found the other kid.”

The news is met with sudden silence. 

“That’s. . .” S. Coups starts but can’t seem to figure out what to say about it.  He doesn’t find help from anyone else either.

Joshua leans almost behind Jeonghan and whispers something that makes the other pull back to get the look on his face. Wonwoo instantly knows what Joshua must have said:  _but they can’t have found him._

“How is that possible?”  Mingyu voices the thought everyone else has kept low.

“I don’t know,” he admits, trying to maintain optimism even though he realizes now he never felt very optimistic to begin with.  He had been waiting all day to gauge their reactions before he decided on his own. “He just showed up.  Seems totally fine except he won’t say a word.  Just like the other one.”

The raindrops pattering on the windows fills the silence.  Wonwoo brushes the last droplets out of his hair.  He avoids making eye contact with Jun.

“So that’s it?” Mingyu’s dissatisfaction takes up the blankness that’s swallowed the rest of the living room.  “No explanations, no anything?”

“Well, the other boy refused to see him,” Wonwoo elaborates although he knows it’s not what Mingyu means.  Somehow the whole situation feels bleak. “He’s still not talking yet but—when we tried to bring his friend in to see him he started screaming, actually.  It just—”

“Doesn’t seem right,” S. Coups finishes for him, taking the words out of his mouth. 

“Yeah.”

_“He’s dead.”_

The comment comes out of the hushed exchange that is passing between Jeonghan and Joshua.  Jeonghan seems to be trying to shush Joshua but they all hear him insist again, “He’s really dead, though. The lake has him—"

Everyone is startled by the noise of a fist hitting a table.  The lamp shade continues to rattle as Woozi stands.  Although every pair of eyes in the room is on him, Woozi hisses to no one at all, “I knew it.”

“What?” Wonwoo wonders, bewildered, as Woozi storms out of the room.

“I got him,” S. Coups says quickly, rising and giving chase.

Wonwoo stays standing in the uncomfortable silence, frozen like the rest of them, and he sees Jeonghan’s eyes staring poignantly at him.  But whatever he’s thinking, Wonwoo isn’t able to hear.

. . .

S. Coups manages to grab Woozi halfway up the stairs.

“Hey, slow down!” He has to dodge around him and block his path.  “Woozi, hold on a second.”

The shorter’s body is visibly tensed and his hands are balled into fists like he’s ready to lash out at something. “Those sons of bitches knew.  They’ve been planning this since the beginning.”

“What do you mean?  What are you talking about?"

Woozi’s eyes are shooting daggers, but he seems to grab hold of the rage that had been fueling him and force it down.  His mouth presses into a thin line and he throws his gaze past S. Coups across the house. 

S. Coups sees him shutting down and sits on the step to show that he’s not going anywhere. “I don’t understand,” he presses, “I only know what you guys told us last night. Talk to me.”

“That kid is dead, Seungcheol, something dragged him to the bottom of the lake and I know it and you know it and everyone in that living room knows it.  That thing that came back isn’t human.  It’s a changeling.”

Faeries. He rubs his hand across his forehead.  He can already imagine the sound of the floorboards creaking in the room above his as Woozi paces in circles tonight.  He won’t be sleeping over this.  Of all things this could have been.

Now that Woozi’s begun, the anger tumbles out of him, “They used us.  They sent us to the lake to stop Joshua from helping the police find the kid’s body.  Can’t highjack the kid’s life if everyone knows he’s dead.  This whole time they’ve been,” he struggles to find the word, “ _scheming_ to replace that child with their own.  And now that family,” Woozi seems to catch that his volume is rising and drops his voice, but somehow it’s more threatening than the yelling had been, “that family is going to spend their lives raising something that isn’t their son. They’ll never know that their son is dead.”

S. Coups waits a long time with the regret and care knit between his eyebrows. Eventually Woozi sits down too, his back to the wall.

“Isn’t it better this way?” Coups wonders, “In some way they’ll have their son back.”

Woozi curls up his lip in a show of distaste that is already defeated. “It won’t be their son. It can never be their son.  And they’ll know it, but they’ll pretend not to.  And that’s the worst part, Seungcheol.”

There’s something in Woozi’s expression that S. Coups only catches on rare occasions.  When he stands visible just on the outside of things.  When he’s entering the house after them or when he steps into a room where they’ve already gathered.  It’s a distance and a yearning.  “I’m so sorry, Woozi.”

“Don’t be sorry for me,” he dismisses, as he picks up discarded paint chipped from the corner of the stairs and tosses the pieces between the slats of the banister “you should feel sorry for that family.”

“I do,” he says, “but I’m sorry to you, too.”

“I should have seen it.”

“How could you—?”

“It doesn’t matter if they didn’t kill that kid, they’re benefiting from his death.”

He sees the coal black ember glowing in Woozi’s eyes and recognizes what it means.  He leans onto his elbow across the stair so he can lower his voice and be close enough to be heard.  “Woozi, you can’t go after them for this.  I’m not going through this with you again.  Not after last time.”

“So they just get away with it again?” Woozi has risen to his feet.

“Hey—wait,” he tries to make a grab for Woozi’s arm.  “Jihoon!”

Woozi’s demeanor crumples and he seems wounded when he turns on him and says, “I asked you not to use that name.”

“You’re listening now, right?” He regrets causing the pained look shielded in Woozi’s eyes but he’s made his point.  “Don’t mess with them.  We’ll find a way to do something, okay?”

Woozi shrugs a reluctant agreement.  “What are we going to do?  They’ve been doing this for centuries and they’re going to keep doing it.  It’s pointless.”

S. Coups hates the defeat in his eyes more than anything. It paralyzes him long enough that Woozi is able to step over him and continue up the stairs.

S. Coups watches up the staircase after him and feels completely wretched. The thought of returning to the living room is too much effort to raise him to his feet.

“Hey.” Wonwoo’s voice comes from the bottom of the staircase. 

“The second kid is a changeling,” S. Coups tells him without turning around.

Wonwoo sighs and S. Coups feels it halfway up the stairs. 

“I worried about that.”

The drumbeat of anger that has been growing steadily louder in S. Coup’s ears has reached a climax in his stillness looking up to the second floor.  The faeries might have been involved, but they were being opportunistic.  There was still something out there drowning kids in the lake. “When we find out what’s responsible for all this, I’m going to kill it with my own two hands, Wonwoo.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.”

S. Coups turns to see the confirmation on Wonwoo’s face. “You know what’s responsible?”

“Yes,” he pulls the coin out of his pocket although he knows S. Coups won’t understand what it means. 

A spark of energy ignites and immediately fizzles out in S. Coups and he reminds reluctantly, “Jeonghan won’t be happy about it.”

“He doesn’t have to be.”

Wonwoo waves him down the stairs.  S. Coups knows they can’t take this out on the fair folk.  They’re old entrenched magic and they hold a grudge.  But whatever is out there trying to pick off kids, misplacing guilt on his people, bringing silence into his house, he would go with Wonwoo to take care of that.  Though he hadn’t had the urge in years.

The rain echoes in the storeroom like they’re standing in the inside of a drum.  Wonwoo passes a bottle over to him. 

“Betony,” Wonwoo explains.  The liquid has a faint yellow look to it, and S. Coups can see the sprigs of some plant floating near the bottom.

“You’re telling me that you’ve been keeping this secret that you can just shut out Jeonghan any time you like?  That’s even possible?”  Somehow it doesn’t quite seem right.

“We’re all due some privacy in our own thoughts, aren’t we?”

When he had taken the bottle, S. Coups had noticed a few stray lines on Wonwoo’s hand.  Hoping to distract the echo of his thoughts so that Jeonghan won’t catch on to what they’re up to, he says, “What’s that, by the way?” gesturing vaguely.

Wonwoo squints at his hand uncertainly.  It appears though the marks are small and smudged that the letters _Di_ are on the side of his hand _._

“No idea.” But it bothers him.  In the store room which has remained mostly unchanged, there’s something earthy in the air, and Wonwoo feels like he could very well step out into a time centuries ago when he and Seungcheol still did things like this.

He grabs a notepad from off the counter and writes the letters down.  He leaves them with the bottle in the storeroom to deal with when they return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n 
> 
> Got the itch and finished two chapters for two stories and posted both and I'm going to just do it before I look backward and freak myself out or talk myself out of it lol. 
> 
> It took me very nearly five months for that Witch at the Well chapter and at this point I'm just leroy jenkins-ing that chapter fiewaoj lord help me. 
> 
> Also out of fear of half told story obscurity. The faeries didn't kill the kid, they just took advantage of the fact that he went missing to orchestrate a swap out. Ok. feiwaofiewj I'm doing it.


	12. Chapter 12

The rain comes down so hard that it bounces a foot off the road.  They can’t even lift their heads, but march with purpose toward the lake. 

The energy charges itself, spilling and crashing until it becomes almost too much.  They wind up practically jogging, shoulder to shoulder like they have before and hadn’t thought they would again.  The trees are straight and tall like long lines of soldiers in the black night.

When they arrive at the lake, there is a figure in the darkness, a shadow that seems almost to be waiting for them.  Wonwoo doesn’t remember getting from point a to b but he slams full force into the figure, driving them into the ground. He can feel S. Coups beside him in the take down.

Although the world is muffled by the cotton in his ears, he knows his role.  The kelpie with its face so convincingly human fights back at him.  He struggles and pins his arm across the creature’s throat.  The shape of the man begins to melt almost immediately. He can feel the creature starting to dissolve and change under him, something like seaweed sticking to his arm, trapping him.

Everything is elbows and clipped faces and blindness in the darkness and the rain.  But that’s what S. Coups is for.  S. Coups dodges the snap of teeth and the violent thrashing of the creature’s rapidly changing face to force the necklace over the figure’s head. 

Wonwoo grasps the coin in his ensnared hand and yells a command he can barely hear in the muffled pounding rain. “Let go!”

There is a moment of fierce resistance, and then slowly the half-changed face slips back toward human.  The entrapment like black tar pulls away and reforms into the shape of the young man from before. 

Wonwoo can’t suffer the false benevolence in that face.  His blood is boiling, his teeth grit, and he pulls his arm up.

A push sends him falling backward.  Stunned, he sees S. Coups launch himself at the creature that had already scrambled up.  Wonwoo tries to level his ringing head in the static of rain through the muffle of cotton.

He sees S. Coups land a solid punch, his other hand fisted around the coin and his mouth moving like he’s yelling commands.  But then he falls without being thrown and hits the ground in a splash of rainwater.  The coin is still closed in his fist, the broken strings dangling over his hand.

The creature seems as surprised as they are for a long moment, and then starts to step backward.  Wonwoo moves to get his feet underneath himself, but someone hurdles by and uses his shoulder as leverage to keep footing on the sinking ground.  The push sends him sprawling again.

By the time he gets up, S. Coups is blocking his view and he has to circle to the side, poised to make another lunge at the monster in the darkness.  Instead, he flies a few feet backward and tumbles onto the ground. 

Jeonghan is standing between them and the kelpie, his hand held up in front of him like a barrier.

With a bubbling anger and surprise, Wonwoo pulls the cotton out of one of his ears.  Sound roars back just in time for him to hear the full brunt of Jeonghan’s accusation,

“—the _hell_ are you doing?” Jeonghan screams above the pounding rain.

Wonwoo tries to shake off the water dripping into his eyes. “This is the monster that was killing kids,” he yells back half blind.

Jeonghan keeps a hand extended but twists to look over his shoulder at the figure of the young man, so deceptively calm and benevolent, that is standing behind him.  “DK, go.”

Wonwoo can’t believe what he’s witnessing.  After only a moment of hesitation, the creature turns and runs.  

S. Coups flinches forward in an instantaneous response but Jeonghan’s hand sweeps in his direction and his legs go out from under him. The distraction is long enough that Wonwoo barely sees something in a shape that is decidedly not human disappear into shadow and blackness in the night.

Jeonghan rounds on them. “You two went around with betony smeared on your foreheads in the rain, did you think I was an idiot? _Did you think I couldn’t figure out where the two of you would be going in the middle of the night without reading your minds?_ ”  The anger in Jeonghan’s tone seems to affect even the rain.  It bounces off and away from him and them.  He is breathing in long and slow in a way that moves his whole body and then he drops onto the muddied ground along with them.

In the sudden silence, S. Coups tries to scoot closer but Jeonghan stops him with a look. They sit in the dull drumbeat of the rain that falls around but no longer on them.  They are just close enough away that Wonwoo can make out their expressions past the blur of his vision. His patience stretches thin as the moment drags on.

“You called that thing by name.”

Jeonghan responds, and S. Coups tilts his head with confusion, until Wonwoo gestures for him to pull the balled up cotton out of his ear.

“Say that again,” Wonwoo demands to get Jeonghan to repeat his words.

“You can’t hurt him.” Jeonghan’s tone is severe though he can’t manage real fire in it.

Wonwoo searches his face—sees past the weakening of steel eyes to the hint of guilt—and he figures it out.

A laugh of tangible disgust bubbles out of him, “You knew.”  Wonwoo prays his expression is as damning as the bite in his voice. “You’ve been letting this happen.”

S. Coups’s eyes widen in a way that’s almost pitiful when he looks from Wonwoo and his accusation to Jeonghan, like he hopes he’ll deny it. “What?”

“Don’t start this,” Jeonghan answers, “You don’t want to start this—.”

The scoff that exits Wonwoo carries a variety of anger he’s never felt before. “You’re a real bastard, Jeonghan.  A hypocrite and a bastard and—

“It’s not normally children.”

Jeonghan’s defense spins S. Coups into devastation and even Wonwoo, despite his anger, wishes that he'd been wrong.

“God, Jeonghan.  What are we even doing?  How can you say that?”

Jeonghan sounds like he’s deliberately trying to be calm, but his posture is stiff, “You can’t judge him the same way as us.  It’s not fair—”

“What do you even _mean_ “him?”  How do you even know that thing?  How the hell can you sit here and—”

“I don’t expect you to understand—”

“A child is _dead_ , Jeonghan, and you could have stopped it!”

“How?” he shouts back at them in a surprising loss of control, “did you want me to play vigilante murder like the two of you?  You can’t pull every cricket out of every spider web.  The crickets die or the spiders do.  If you’d met Jun two years before I called you to France you would have killed him.  Am I wrong?”

“Jun doesn’t drown children in the lake,” Wonwoo responds though half of his focus is occupied with Jeonghan’s words about crickets and spiders.  He doesn’t like the comparison:  the way it weighs a human life against some creature in the lake.  He could put down a rabid dog if it was attacking a child:    with no love lost for mankind, he wouldn’t hesitate.  This thing isn’t anything like them.  There’s no moral grey area here.

Jeonghan is deflated and shrunken by the effects of the rain, and there’s no fire in him when he explains, “Jun trying his best means that no one has to die.  DK trying his best means that less people have to die.”

“I can’t believe you’re saying that.”

“He deserves to live the same as any of us.”

“Didn’t that boy?”

The searching, honest intention of the question has Jeonghan silenced for a very long time.  They are able to find a center between them in the rhythm of the rain that is steadying but not letting up.  It doesn’t reach them in the barrier that Jeonghan unconsciously holds in place.

Jeonghan finally says, “It was an accident.  He wasn’t aiming for the boy.  We all make mistakes.  All of us.  I’m not going to play God by saying he doesn’t deserve to live just because he’s designed differently than the rest of us.  That we were lucky to be born as something that doesn’t have the same need to hunt.”

“Jeonghan, I can’t. . .” S. Coups has been quiet for a long time, but the disturbance in his expression has settled in.  “Last night Mingyu almost walked into the lake because of that thing. How long were you going to wait to tell us?”

“Tell me honestly that you’d want to be in my place.  Tell me you’d really have wanted to know.  To deal with the decisions I’ve had to live with.”

“What decisions? How many other people have you let him kill?” Unlike either of them, S. Coups seems so earnest and hurt that anger might have been more agreeable.

Jeonghan’s face is pale and his expression tight.  The rain has brought in cooler air.  He is shivering through his teeth. “Mistakes happen.  I’ve been working with him.”

“For how long?”

“Since last summer, okay?  You have to understand.” He lets his gaze settle on Wonwoo for a moment longer than he does on S. Coups, “I’ve been looking out for him.  I hope you can understand that at least.  You would understand if you’d just—”

“This is insane, Jeonghan! You shouldn’t have kept this from us—”

“And you shouldn’t have been driving!” The rain draws back into focus.  Even Jeonghan seems caught off-guard about what he’s said.  He is halfway between regret and anger, but there’s also a certainty that drives him to finish in a pinched voice, “And you _knew_ that, Coups.”

Wonwoo is uncomfortable with the implication that this was an ongoing problem.  He doesn’t understand the impact that Jeonghan’s words are having on S. Coups, whose face is flickering with half-built realizations that apparently elude him.

In the same tone, Jeonghan repeats firmly, “You shouldn’t have been driving.  Not that night.  You drove the damn car up onto a boulder because you were that out of it.”

“I hit the mailbox.”

“ _No_ , Coups.  I hit the mailbox.  You took a wrong turn and I knew something was wrong and I had to come get you.  And it was so stupidly hot, and the air in that car never works.”

“I had the windows down.”

S. Coups sounds disconnected to the thought. He isn’t connecting with Jeonghan’s insistent expression, either. His hand is poking at his forehead. Wonwoo had seen the bruise earlier when S. Coups had put the betony under his bangs.  He hadn’t thought to question it.  Hoshi had tried to tell him at some point yesterday that Coups had parked the car on the mailbox.  He had assumed that was all it was.

“You had the windows down,” Jeonghan emphasizes in agreement. He’s not letting go of his laser focus, though his insistence has softened to an apology.

“I’m sorry,” S. Coups is waving his hand vaguely at the air, his eyes closed, “What does this have to do with—?”

“We’re not perfect.  If I’d known you’d heard his voice, if I’d known he was hunting, I would have tried to get there faster, but I don’t know everything.  I just don’t.  And I’m sorry I don’t.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because two nights ago you weren’t the only one in the woods.  You weren’t the only one by the lake.  It was hot.  They probably just wanted to swim.”

All of the dozens of puzzle pieces Wonwoo had been rearranging over the past two days fit together in that moment.  He’d never stopped to ask why Jeonghan had insisted he and S. Coups leave town on short notice.  Now it was obvious:  it was for the same reason that last night Jeonghan had stayed up until dawn outside of Mingyu’s door:  claiming something about a relapse, that the effects of the voice might not wear off all at once.  He should have known then what Jeonghan knew.

“It wasn’t personal, okay?” Every word Jeonghan says now has the edge of an apology like he doesn’t want to hurt S. Coups but it’s too late not to.  “He doesn’t know you.  But someone crashes near the lake and it’s an opportunity.  It was nobody’s fault. They were just closer. They just got their first.”

Wonwoo remembers Jeonghan's words:  _He wasn’t aiming for the boy._  

As if he’s just remembered the coin clenched in his hand, S. Coups forces open his fingers.  Wonwoo imagines the impression of the image would be pressed into his palm with how hard he’d been holding on to it.  S. Coups’s head hangs low toward his hand in his lap and the coin on the broken cord. 

“What you’re saying is:  it should have been me.  That boy would be alive if I’d been the one to get to the lake first.”

“I’m saying that things are messy.  They’re always messy.  We make our decisions and we deal with them.  That boy might be alive if he hadn’t snuck out of his house.  Or if you hadn’t tried to drive yourself home.  Or if I’d killed DK the day I met him.  And if I let you kill DK tonight, we’d prevent someone else from dying sometime in the future.  We can’t live in what ifs like that, though.” Jeonghan puts his hand forward onto the ground between them yet can’t seem to bridge the rest of the space.  “But you have to understand:  no one else is going to be on his side.  I have to be.  If you met him you’d understand.”

“I don’t think I could meet him right now.” S. Coups’s voice is a whisper that is lifeless and cold.  

“I can’t lie about this,” Wonwoo decides, “I can lie about a lot of things, but Coups is right.  If we want to avoid a repeat of last night, they need to know he’s out there.”

“How do we tell them,” S. Coups asks dully, “we can’t expect them to accept this.”

“We lie if we have to.  Whatever it takes.  I don’t care.  But you can’t hurt him.”

“Why did Jun think the car smelt like blood?”

The question catches Jeonghan off guard.  “I told him you hit an animal.”

“What’s the truth?”

Jeonghan hesitates, “I couldn’t leave. . .if they found the finger at the lake. . .”

The picture is enough to make S. Coups blanche and he questions like he’s afraid to know the answer, “Is it in the car. . .?”

“No.  I took care of it once I got you and the car back.”

Wonwoo doesn’t feel angry anymore.  He wishes that he did, because the feeling had been propping him up before.  Now he just feels empty and a sadness, because he does understand why Jeonghan would do this.  It’s the same reason he’d allowed himself to risk so much of their privacy and safety to solve what was ultimately a solved mystery.  “When you got to the lake to pick up S. Coups.  Was the other boy still there?  Did you try—”

“No,” he says with a surprising compassion, “no he was long gone.  There was nothing we could do at that point. I did what I had to.”

Not a single part of Wonwoo is convinced that Jeonghan believes that.  He feels almost ashamed himself, to be sitting in the mud and the rain, thinking that Jeonghan was a hypocrite while he was out here with S. Coups and a knife.  So many years after giving it all up.  Only hours after trying to tell the deacon they didn’t do this anymore.  It seems they’d all come a long way to get nowhere at all. They were all here to protect what they cared about.  Wonwoo couldn’t fault the inherent goodness in that.  But suddenly he couldn’t justify a single one of their choices. 

“I don’t want to do this.”

It’s S. Coups who says it.

“Me either.”

Jeonghan sounds like he means it, and Wonwoo knows again that he had been protecting them.  Jeonghan hadn’t wanted them to share the burden of this.  

They did now, though.  And the pact felt affirming in some way.

“Remember back in Amsterdam?  Trying to hide the fact that we were harboring a vampire in a second floor apartment?”   

S. Coups buries his head like laughing feels ridiculous. Jeonghan smiles but it seems to rises out of desperation.

“Look how far we’ve come.” Jeonghan’s words are heavy with irony but Wonwoo wonders if it isn’t in some way true.

“We’ll make it work.”

S. Coups is looking at Jeonghan like the words hold special meaning.

“I don’t know how,” Jeonghan admits back.

Wonwoo can appreciate that he's willing to say so honestly.  He doesn't know what they're going to do or decide.  He doesn't know if he'll be able to look at Jeonghan the same way or what they'll have to tell the others or how they'll deal with what they've learned about the creature at the lake, but he knows one thing for sure:

“We’ll do it because we have to.”

And the reality of that sinks in as the rain-swollen lake sits behind them in the night:  still dark and patient.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo~ The truth is, this story is one giant red-herring. I figured less than halfway through people would know that it was DK doing this. From chapter 2 to now, so much of this was a distraction from what was going on under the surface with Jeonghan’s role in the story. Early in the first chapter, Jun walks in to find a disoriented S. Coups with a bruise on his head. The car is a bit banged up in the driveway and it smells like blood. Next we know Jeonghan and S. Coups are leaving for a few days and Jeonghan tells Jun not to get involved because it never helps. Jeonghan spends the rest of the story discouraging people from getting involved. While the faeries, Dino, the deacon, Josh, etc. all have important roles in this story, they were also part of taking the focus away from those very first chapters. (Also why running WatW and this simultaneously felt like a good idea. This isn't about "who did it" it's more about "who knew about it." )
> 
> I also really like putting them into more difficult situations. I mean, looking at someone like Jun or S. Coups and saying “You’re not a monster” is easy. But here it’s hard. Because we really like DK. We’ve met him in the future. We know him. But it’s not so easy to look at him now and say “Oh, you're not a monster.” I also didn't want the moral dilemma resolved here because in some ways it can never be resolved. Although I'm team DK even if he does drown people in the lake. 
> 
> **20 fake dollars to anyone who caught the self-indulgent horse reference earlier in the story*
> 
> Thank you guys for coming along on this insanely long potentially unsatisfying mystery, haha. On to the next one!

**Author's Note:**

> For new folks who want to know about the characters: http://kayeblaise.tumblr.com/theimmortals


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